
Class 

Boob_ Q ^^ ^ 4 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



A 

Box of Treasure 



BY 



BEVERLY CARRADINE 



AUTHOR OF 



Peopli I Have Met — A Bundle of Arrows — Living 

Illustrations — Pastoral Sketches — Pen Pictures — 

Remarkable Occurrences — J Journey to 

Palestine — Mississippi Stories — Bible 

Characters — Heart Talks — 

Soul Help — Etc.^ Etc, 



THE CHRISTIAN WITNESS CO. 

CHICAGO AND BOSTON 






-^y 



Copyilgbt, 1910. 

by 

THE CHBISTIAN WIT^-ESS CO. 



CLA2GS977 



CONTENTS 



PAQI 

I. The Battle on This Planet 7 

II. Five Kinds of Divine Healing IS 

III. From What Christ Does Not Make Us Free. 28 

IV. The Holy Ghost No Failure 42 

V. The Victim of Natural Goodness 50 

VI. The Travail of Zion 60 

VII. The Freedom of the Holiness Movement .... 6S 

VIII. The Upper Room and Tongues 78 

IX. Leaving the First Principles 8G 

X. The Delay of the Gospel 95 

XI. The Jungle in the Heart 104 

XII. The Death of Conscience 112 

XIII. New Wine and Old Bottles 120 

XIV. The Shout at Jericho 128 

XV. The Wise Men of the West 135 

XVI. A Perfect Consecration 145 

XVII. Christ— The Altar 153 

XVIII. The Sunrise Blessing ICO 

XIX. Religious Singing 169 

XX. The Divine Monopoly 179 

XXI. Celestial Property ISO 

XXII. Disappointment 194 

XXIII. Difference in Hearing 203 

XXIV. Lessons from Crucifixion 211 

XXV. Preaching the Great Instrumentality of Sal- 
vation 219 

XXVI. The Auricular Cuspidor 22S 

XXVn. Moulting and Shedding 237 

XXVIII. The Effect of Distance 242 



CONTENXa 

Page 

XXIX. Lessons from Halley's Comet 250 

XXX. The Aeroplane Blessing 259 

XXXI. The Forty 267 

XXXII. The Divine Permission of Wrong Doing 278 

XXXIII. The Necessity of a Day of Judgment 290 

XXXIV. The Quiet Power of Goodness 299 

XXXV. The Chamber Over the Gate 307 

XXXVI. The Sick Room 315 

XXXVII. Some Thoughts About Death 322 

XXXVIII. Dying Flashes 333 



A BOX OF TREASURE 



THE BATTLE ON" THIS PLANET 

There is a war going on in the universe, beside which 
the military conflicts of the nations of this earth sink 
into utter insignificance. 

As to duration, we observe that our Civil War lasted 
four years, the Revolutionary struggle eight, the 
campaigns of Napoleon twelve or fifteen, the Cartha- 
ginian and Roman wars several decades of years; but 
the great contest we speak of as taking place in the 
universe has been going on without the intermission 
of a day or hour for thousands of years. 

As for numbers engaged on either side, one to three 
million of soldiers would easily cover in a numerical 
way the combatants in the campaigns of the nations, 
while in this moral conflict which is raging as described 
in the Bible and recognized in life, every angel in 
Heaven, every devil in Hell, and every human being 
on earth has taken part or is at present doing so. 

Then when in addition we notice that its battle 

7 



8 A BOX OF TREASURE 

fields are worlds; that the fight is not between a man 
and his fellow simply, but between the creature and his 
Creator; that the result is everlasting life and blessed- 
ness, or eternal death, woe and misery; we see at once 
how unspeakably this war of the universe transcends 
in every particular, battles of the kingdoms and nations 
of this world. 

How far into the vast creation of God this conflict 
has gone we cannot tell. It has touched other orbs 
according to the Bible, and there seem hints that would 
point to its presence in Btill more distant globes. 

It is evident from Scripture that the battle is over 
in one of these three worlds, God having obtained the 
victory there as he will in all other places where the 
rebellion has broken out. The sinning angels com- 
pletely defeated there, are today with their leading 
Head, simply awaiting God^s time to send them into 
the Pit, the penitentiary of the universe. 

The place, where the war existed before our time, is 
perfectly free now from every enemy of God, and the 
conflict is transferred to the planet we live in. It has 
been raging six thousand years, is in every count r}% 
city and village, has penetrated every home, and the 
battle lines rush and fall back, wave and waver, advance 
and retreat in every human breast. The shot and 
ghell, the gasp and groan, the captivity and death, the 



THE BATTLE ON THIS PLANET 9 

shout and victory has taken place in every part of the 
whole round world upon which we live. 

God for wise reasons has allowed the fallen angels 
or devils to take part in an unseen but unmistakably 
felt way in this strange, sad, bitter and long lasting 
contest on earth. This very fact of allowing wicked 
angels to help evil men, in itself shows that He has 
no fear or apprehension whatever of the final triumph, 
when the nations that forget God, and all dying in 
unbelief and disobedience, shall be turned into the 
Hell that was prepared for the Devil and his angels. 

The features of this war seem in a certain sense to 
change as it rages in first one world and then another, 
or comes moving down the centuries in our own earth. 
That is, certain great principles and truths have to 
be defended and re-established, so to speak. Different 
doctrines and facts, from God's existence authority, 
character and person, down to the least commandment, 
have to be rescued from alien, perverting, and inimical 
hands, and not only vindicated and proved, but fiaed 
all the more firmly as well as abidingly in the heart, 
minds and lives of the moral, intellectual beings the 
Almighty has made. 

But whatever is the question, the issue, the struggle, 
the defiance, the denial or the resistance, it is always 
a fight against God in some form. The attack is made 



10 A BOX or TREASURE 

upon something that God is, or has said or has done. 

In the first conflict we read of that broke out in 
another world, we gather from certain lines in the 
Scripture that it was God's dominion and rulership 
that was assailed. 

In the early portion of our planet's history the great 
battle with the nations was not only the authority of 
God, but the fact that there was only one God. 

The prophets of Heaven, few in number, met this 
issue continually as they were confronted with many 
priests and prophets representing a multitude of gods. 

There is but one God is the Old Testament cry from 
beginning to end ! Every true Servant of Heaven, stood 
for this issue in the face of the idolatry and polytheism 
of the day. "There is one God" he said, "and beside 
Him is none other" ! 

Now let the reader ask himself if this is the ques- 
tion in our day? And at once he must answer, No. 

What is the fight now? Certainly not the fact of a 
divine, exalted person. Every heathen land recognizes 
a supreme being. The Jewsl stand for that. The 
MJohammedans have that truth cried out from the 
minarets of their mosques by their muezzins twice or 
thrice every day. Even an infidelity called Deism 
admits an infinite divine One called God. 

What is ,the fight -about now, has been for two 



THE BATTLE ON THIS PLANET 11 

thousand years^ and will be, and must be, until the 
end of time or the close of this earthly probation? 

Do we need to say to any intelligent Christian, or 
any thoughtful, observant being, that the battle ioday 
is in regard to the person and claims of Jesus Christ? 
Is He the eternal Son o£ God ? Is He Divine ? Is He 
the Messiah ? Is He the second person in the Trinity ? 
Can He forgive sins ? Can He sanctify the soul by 
the baptism with the Holy Ghost? Can He raise the 
dead? Is He the judge of all the earth? 

The whole struggle of the last twenty centuries 
circles about Christ, as to who He is, and what He 
can do. 

It is certainly well to know this in order to fight 
intelligently and successfully, and in order not to beat 
the air uncertainly, to waste our ammunition, and 
really do nothing and get nowhere. It would be pitiful 
indeed to think we were on Christ's side, and yet not 
only be doing nothing for Him, but be actually against 
Him. 

For instance, what time and energy are lost in trying 
to prove that there is a God or supreme being, when 
this is really not the issue on hand ; and when the Bible 
says that everybody believes the fact but a "fool." That 
is in view, of the manifest design in creation all around 
us, to be an atheist, or one who says -there is no God, 



12 A BOX OF TREASTJKE . 

is to be senseless or an idiot! And what is the use of 
reasoning with idiots? 

This is not the battle anyhow! The fight is about 
Christ, His messiahship, divinity, ability to pardon, 
sanctify, raise the dead, and judge the world. To be 
in the true war going on we must say yes to all these 
facts> and stand up for every one of them. If we do 
not, then we have left or are leaving the battle line. 

Hence it is First ; that a. man who denies the Messiah- 
ship of Christ is out of the real contest. He has been 
whipped by the other side. He is a captive now in the 
ranks of God's enemies, for God is backing up the 
claims of His Son, and bids men to kiss the Son lest 
He be angry, and declares that He laughs at and will 
bring to naught the counsel of the kings against "His 
Anointed." 

Second, when Mohammedanism denies the divinity 
of Jesus, it, while claiming to be a true religion, is 
out of the army of God, and actually arrayed against 
the cause of the Being whom they profess to believe and 
in whose service they fancy they are. 

Third, when Unitarianism declares against the di- 
vinity of Jesus Christ, robbing Him of His place in 
the God-head, they have ceased at once to be on the 
Lord's side in the battle that is now going on in the 
world. For the fight is hot now "Is there one G^d?'' 



THE BATTLE ON THIS PLANET 13 

that is an achieved victory ! But is there a Trinity of 
persons in this one God, and is not Christ the second 
person in that Triune God ? Hence it is that Unitari- 
anism is no longer in the fight on God's side, but is in 
the ranks of His enemies. 

Fourth, when Infidelity and what is called the gen- 
eral unbelief of the multitude, say that Christ cannot 
forgive sins, then all such people by this very state- 
ment, and their consequent conduct, range themselves 
in battle array against the cause of Heaven in this world. 

Fifth, when numbers of Christiana so-called, declare 
that there is no second work of grace in which Christ 
sanctifies the soul, but ascribe holiness to growth and 
development; to a result of good works, etc., they have 
surrendered or denied the most important claim of the 
Son of God, robbed Him of his distinctive glory, and 
loaned their regiments and brigades to the enemies of 
the Father and His Son. Fancying they are for God, 
they are really fighting the cause of God. 

Sixth, when Swedenborgianism and other religious 
schools and followings like them, deny the future resur- 
rection of the body, and the coming Day of Judgment, 
giving the most fanciful, unwarrantable and mystical 
meaning to the Scripture stating these facts, and which 
the Father says shall be done by His Son, they have 
been whipped out of the battle line of truth, and be- 



14 A BOX OF TREASURE 

come mixed up with the enemies of the Son of God. 

Seventh, when Christians join lodges, fraternities and 
brotherhoods where the divinity of Jesus Christ is not 
recognized, where not even His name is in their rituals, 
then they have virtually given up the very battle which 
the Father is making for His Son, and has been press- 
ing for the last two thousand years. 

Preachers and laymen of different churches who have 
joined secret societies and brotherhoods, have informed 
us that the lodge or fraternity was established on a 
broad basis, viz.: the fact of a supreme divine being 
and the brotherhood of man. 

Our reply to them is that the Bible does not teach 
any such brotherhood, but the contrary. That Christ 
eaid of a certain people that they were of their father 
the Devil, and the Scriptures declare unsaved men to 
be children of wrath. So that the popular platform 
talk about the brotherhood of man is mere oratorical 
gush and moral rot. 

Moreover that which they term the broad basis of 
the lodge's system is a complete surrender to the side 
of the enemy, of the person and claims of the Son of 
God. That which they pronounce a broad platform is 
so constructed in its so-called breadth as to push Jesua 
Christ clear off the ground, and leaves Him out of 



THE BATTLE ON THIS 1»LANET 15 

Bight and hearing, without worship and without even 
recognition. 

We call their attention to the fact that the "fight" 
now on, and that must be on until Jesus appears as 
the Judge of the Earth in the mid Heavens, and "His 
enemies shall become His footstool," is not over the 
truth that there is a divine supreme being, for all 
nations and religions agree to that, but the more faith- 
trying statement and revelation of Heaven that Jesus 
Christ is the Son of God, co-equal and co-eternal with 
the Father, and the only Saviour of the World. 
This is the assertion and contest of a true unfallen 
Christianity. 

So that to join a lodge or fraternity with the. idea 
that such a society or brotherhood offers a broader basis 
than can be found in the Christian Church by the 
simple recognition of a supreme divine being, is really 
to give up the "battle," is to deny the Saviour, sur- 
render the claims and rights of Jjesus Christ, and 
actually be found warring against the will and work of 
the "Supreme Being," who as God the Father, is vin- 
dicating and pressing on to final triumph the cause of 
His Son in this present dispensation. 

In addition to this when we behold a so-called "Con- 
gress of Religions," where Christian ministers sit on 
the same platform with Jews, Mohammedans, and fol- 



16 A BOX OP TREASUEE 

lowers of Buddha and Confucius, and hear the mongrel 
meeting called by the newspapers, and thoughtless un- 
epiritual church members, an assembly of beautiful 
fraternity, a public exhibition of Christian unity and 
love; we are filled with loathing, disgust and horror 
over the delusion, misconception and misstatement of 
the sickening affair. Instead of Christian fraternity 
it is nothing else but downright Christian disloyalty! 
It is a slap, blow, wound and public insult given to 
Christ. It is a virtual surrender in a most prominent 
and conspicuous way of the dignity, divinity and su- 
premacy of Jesus the Son of God. 

For a Christian minister to sit in fraternal relation 
in a pulpit or on a platform with Hindoo priests who 
deny the divinity of our Lord, and by the side of 
Jewish rabbis, who affirm that our Saviour is a bastard 
and impostor; is for that same preacher of the Gospel 
or church layman not only to put Christ to a public 
shame and humiliation, but to bring Him on a level 
with false saviours and gods, to deny Him, to surrender 
Him, to give up the real fight of the last twenty 
centuries and be found on amiable friendly terms with 
the opposers and enemies of the Son of God. 

The Congress of Religions and the Lodge occupy the 
same position in this horrible treason, this traitorship 



THE BATTLE ON THIS PLANET 17 

in regard to Jesus, the Son of God, the only Saviour 
of the world. 

God save every reader of these lines from such a 
broadness and so-called fraternity and catholicity of 
spirit, that after all its flowery speeches and sentimental 
gnshings is nothing but the denial, the betrayal, the 
surrender, and downright forsaking of Jesus Christ 
the Son of God. 



II 

FIVE KINDS OF DIVINE HEALING 

If we give really serious thought to the subject, 
we are compelled to admit that all healing comes di- 
rectly or indirectly from God. There could be none 
at all without his work or works. It is a happening or 
result connected in every instance with some kind of 
manifestation or exercise of divine power. 

There have been sudden recoveries, so called, that 
have apparently taken place under the manipulations of 
the veriest cranks and humbugs, as well as those which 
are beheld under the influence and work of certain eccle- 
siastical bodies, where really and actually there had 
been no disease or sickness. The complaint existed solely 
in the imagination. But under some kind of appeal 
or surrounding, a mental revolution took place, the 
fancied ailment of course disappeared, and there stood 
before the community an apparent marvelous and sudden 
cure. 

And yet no real healing had taken place, for there 
had been no actual malady to operate on. 

Evidently then, the delivery from an imaginary 
18 



FIVE KINDS OF DIVINE HEALING 19 

physical affliction, however pleasant the mental conse- 
quence may be, is in all truth no virtual case of heal- 
ing. Genuine healing must and can only proceed from 
God. 

A second thought we advance is that God heals in 
more ways than he gets credit for. 

Not only the world but the friends and followers of 
the Lord rob him of much of his glory and power as 
well as his wisdom and goodness, when they restrict 
him to one mode of bestowing health and recovery upon 
the afflicted human body. By such a conclusion as well 
as doctrine, they purloin from the Divine Being four- 
fifths of the praise that is due him for this great bless- 
ing, for God has no less than five ways of healing the 
body! 

Furthermore, as the Almighty One has seen fit to 
restore more people by four of the methods alluded to, 
than by the one which is so urged upon mankind by 
some of the smaller ecclesiastical bodies, we see that 
instead of four-fifths it would be nearer the truth to 
say that ninety-nine hundredths of the credit and glory 
belonging to God in this matter has been taken from 
him, or failed to be attributed to him. 

One method of divine healing known to numbers and 
believed in by many, is instant restoration by the power 
of God, in answer to faith and prayer on the part of 



20 A BOX OF TREASURE 

the one afflicted, or by others who plead and believe 
in his behalf. 

We have repeatedly in our life beheld both of these 
instances. Some cases where individual and solitary 
faith was sufficient to bring health and life back with a 
rush into the pain racked and disease smitten body. In 
other cases, for whose sakes prayer was made, the re- 
covery came to persons who were hundreds of miles 
away and the deliverance arrived while the supplicators 
were on their knees pleading for the one w^ho at that 
moment was hovering on the borders of eternity. Bishop 
Galloway of the M. E. Church South was undoubtedly 
brought back to life in this way. 

Once while a pastor in New Orleans a leading woman 
of our congregation was suddenly restored, who had 
been given up by several doctors. Her husband, him- 
self a prominent physician, was weeping in a comer of 
the room, expecting to be told of his wife's last breath. 
The writer was on his knees begging God for her life, 
when suddenly with a beautiful smile she spoke aloud 
and said, "God has healed me!" and it was so, and it 
was a perfect restoration. 

Several months later, while at a district conference, 
a telegram came acquainting that body of ministers and 
laymen with the sad tidings of the swift approaching 
dissolution of a gifted and pious young preacher of that 



FIVE KINDS OF DIVINE HEALING 21 

annual conference. Instantly the Presiding Elder called 
everybody to their knees, and asked one of the preachers 
to lead in prayer. The Spirit of God came on the man 
praying, and with tears and strong crying he plead, 
God willing, for the life of the young man. When all 
arose, after the prayer had been concluded, a number 
felt that it had been heard and accepted in heaven. In 
a few hours came the news that at the very time we 
were on our knees pleading with God about his sick 
servant, the dying man, over one hundred miles away, 
was suddenly healed. 

A second divine method of healing is by water. 

The great chemist of the universe in some way, and 
with a certain blending of chemical elements, and an 
abiding proportion among themselves that puzzle both 
physicians and pharmacists, has given a healing property 
to -springs and pools of water that effect a perfect cure 
of the human body, though accomplished giadually and 
not suddenly like the first. 

As God made the water, and placed the restoring 
quality in its crystal flow, of course then the cure is 
as much a case of divine healing, as when it comes 
in answer to faith and prayer. The only difference is 
that one is direct, personal and immediate, while the 
other is instrumental, personal and gradual. But God 
is in both. 



22' A BOX OF TREASURE 

That water heals many ailments and maladies of the 
flesh no one in possession of his sense and senses can 
truthfully deny. Twice the writer has been restored to 
perfect health by the power of this second mode of 
healing. Once at Cooper's Wells in Mississippi, when a 
pastor in Vicksburg. Again in 1893, when we had 
sciatica boiled out of us by the steaming natural baths 
of Hot Springs, Ark. 

This kind of cure can be properly called Divine Heal- 
ing Number Two. 

A third mode of divine healing has been deposited so 
to speak in climate. 

None of us could count the people who, dying by 
inches in one part of the country, have been restored 
to perfect health by removing to another state or 
territory. 

As God has made the climate, and given to it the 
virtue or power to renew or relieve certain physical 
conditions, then are we compelled to admit the fact of 
a third kind of divine healing; and as we see an annual 
exodus of people seeking for the mountain, sea shore 
or desert atmosphere, as their different and peculiar 
troubles call for, then we behold plainly not only the 
faith of multitudes in such a cure, but later on we mark, 
in many instances, the proof of the healing in its 
obtainment. And this is Number Three. 



FIVE KINDS OF DIVINE HEALING 23 

A fourth divine healing comes through the virtue of 
medicine and the skill of real doctors. 

That God has placed certain remedial qualities in the 
vegetable and mineral kingdoms, is recognized in Scrip- 
ture, proved in nature, and realized in life. 

That God also has given to some men the cast of 
mind which, when informed and trained, makes them 
skillful and successful physicians, we can no more doubt 
than that he makes preachers, and scatters gifts of all 
kinds among the children of men. 

We believe that there are multitudes asleep in the 
cemetery who would have lived many years longer if 
they had used the helps and means of recovery which 
God had sent them in medicine, and the knowledge and 
experience of men wise and able in the medical realm. 

As both medicine and men are the creations of God, 
the proper treatment by one, and the correct use of the 
other, can be most reasonably expected with God's bless- 
ing on the instrumentality to result in a divine cure of 
still another order. This we would call Divine Healing 
Number Four. 

The writer and countless thousands can bear witness 
to this mode of restoration. And what is more, wc can 
properly call it divine healing, and give God the glory. 

A fifth character of divine healing is to be seen in 
Nature itself. That is, in every case of real sickness 



24 A BOX OF TREASURE 

the laws of our physical being, come to the succor of the 
afflicted and endeavor in various ways to throw off the 
disease; and wherever given a fair chance will bring 
relief. 

Now as Nature and its laws are all of God, we are 
compelled to see in this restoration, no accident what- 
ever, but a divine healing again ; and which we can very 
truly term Divine Healing Number Five. 

Here, then, we have five different kinds of Divine 
Healing. 

Furthermore we w^ould state that we have seen every 
one of these forms and expressions of the power of 
God, not only present but testifying in our meetings. 
These things being so, we cannot refrain from draw- 
ing several conclusions. 

One is that the individual who has been blessed and 
restored through one of these operations, ought not to 
discount the experience, and cast his brother out of the 
synagogue whom God has helped in another way. 

Second: To keep us humble and looking to him all 
the while; and to make us tolerant with one another, 
and to broaden us spiritually as well; God, who is 
pleased to heal us in a certain manner at one time, may 
see fit to restore us in a different way on another oc- 
casion. 

Third: There are some people whom God evidently 



FIVE KINDS OF DIVINE HEALING 25 

will never heal at any time or in any way. Whether 
these persons be good or wicked, yet it is alike manifest 
that they will never recover what, in some way, has 
been lost or forfeited. The Lord withholds his blessing 
from every one of the five modes of healing we have 
mentioned. This is not only beheld as a fact in 
Scripture, but also in daily life. 

As physical health is not essential to pardon, holiness, 
and entrance into heaven, we can breathe easily when 
we see a number of good people unable to find, in any 
of the five ways, a recovery of bodily strength and 
soundness. 

As for wicked people, we count it a blessing to the 
church, to society and to the world, that many of them 
can never get back their lost health and physical power. 
For there are very many men and women living to-day 
whom, if God was to restore in body, would at once 
become a curse to family and community as they plunged 
afresh into careers of worldliness, drunkenness, de- 
bauchery and general deviltry. 

Healing, then, is not for everybody, as good ^ense, 
as well as the Bible, will show; and so is not to be 
taught, and sought after as all can and should ask for 
regeneration and sanctification. Hence when a self- 
constituted evangelist and teacher telegraphed to a 
preacher in one of our large cities, "Have all the sick 



26 A BOX OF TREASURE 

and devil-possessed to meet me when I come" — there 
was shown at once in the dispatch that a fanatic and 
profound ignoramus was sending the telegram. 

Fourth: That as all healing comes from God, then 
to God let us give the glory, whether the cure comes 
by climate, water, medicine, nature, or the direct per- 
sonal touch of the Almighty. 

Fifth: Our physical weakness, and acquired or in- 
herited diseases need not keep us out of heaven, if our 
Bouls are well, and stay right with God. 

The beggar whom Christ tells us about was full of 
sores, and died on an ashpile near the rich man's gate. 
But the Saviour said the angels came for him, and bore 
him aloft on their snowy wings to Paradise. 

Sixth: There is a healing of the soul which is far 
more important than that of the body, no matter how 
blessed and desirable the latter may be. 

When we obtain the grace of full salvation, it often 
brings with it, as a beautiful attendant or follower, a 
well body. But even if it does not and we may be 
called to witness and work for God in a frail and 
trembling tenement of clay, yet the spirit itself, full of 
spiritual health, will be a compensation that will pay 
many times over for all our physical pangs. 

Nor is that all. But one of these days the struggle 
and battle of life will be over, we will take the last 



FIVE KIITDS OF DIVINE HEALING 27 

breath, heave the last sigh and enter into rest and be 
well forevermore. St. John in Revelation has given us 
a picture of how it shall be with us then in the words, 
"And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; 
and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor 
crying: neither shall there v be any more pain; for the 
former things are passed away/' 



Ill 



FROM WHAT CHRIST DOES NOT MAKE US FREE 

The promise of the Saviour to His followers was 
that He would make them "free indeed." This He did 
at Pentecost through the Baptism with the Holy Ghost. 
This He continues to do to this day for those who will 
meet the conditions He has laid down. 

This freedom however desirable and blessed, is less 
than some think it to be, and at the same time is far 
more than others have been taught to regard and expect 
in the promised grace. 

If the Blessing does not give and make us more than 
we found and experienced in regeneration, then we fail 
to see the significance and truthfulness of the term 
"Free Indeed.'^ 

The Bible evidently teaches three distinct soul states 
or conditions under the expressions Bondage, Free and 
Free Indeed. The last evidently must mean more, and 
as a typified blessing, bring more to us in the' soul life 
than we experience in what is plainly an intermediate 
grace taught in the word free. 

On the other hand, if the- "Free Indeed" blessing 
28 



FROM WHAT CHRIST DOES NOT MAKE US FREE 29 

allows US or causes us to do what is clearly unallowable 
in regeneration and contradicted and forbidden by other 
portions and passages of the Bible, then evidently we 
have not the blessing which Christ promised, or have 
distorted, perverted and actually destroyed a beautiful 
grace of God in changing what the Scripture calls 
"freedom indeed/' into downright license for the flesh 
and sin. 

There are no less than eight distinct kinds of law 
recognized and taught in the Word of God. They are 
the Moral, Natural, Civil, Ecclesiastical, Ceremonial, 
Constitutional, a seventh known as the Law of Custom, 
covering the demands of good taste and propriety, and 
still another, the eighth, called the Law of Sin. 

First it must be evident to any right thinking person 
that the Saviour has never come to release us from 
obedience to the Moral Law or the divine command- 
ments. 

Christ died to meet the demands of a holy law that 
had been broken by sinners, but never fulfilled it in 
such a sense as to allow the redeemed, His followers, to 
violate it. He would have been a poor Saviour, a fearful 
leader indeed, and his people wretched followers, if they 
construed his obedient life into a liberty granted them 
to transgress that which he so gloriously honored. His 



30 A BOX OF TREASURE 

plan was not to fill the earth with commandment break- 
ing antinomians, but law-keeping-Christians. 

Second as to what we would here term Natural Law, 
is of God and is to be respected and obeyed if we 
would not come into physical disaster. These com- 
mandments are not written on two tables of stone 
merely, but on all the stones, in the air and water, in 
the eky above us, and in the earth beneath. The man 
who claims the great blessing of the Saviour and acts 
as if he was exempt from this solemn law of the universe 
itself, is a fool or a fanatic. 

The devil tried to make Christ break it, by asking 
him to throw himself down from the pinnacle of the 
temple. He said that it was written that the angels 
would bear him up lest he should dash his foot against 
a stone. The tempter left out the words "in thy ways." 
The Saviour's reply was, "Thou shalt not tempt the 
Lord thy God." The warning was against our count- 
ing upon the miraculous deliverances of God when we 
presumptuously ignored or broke his laws in Nature. 

But the objector says Jesus himself told his disciples 
in the sixteenth chapter of Mark that they should go 
forth, take up serpents, and if they drank any deadly 
thing it should not hurt. But if the Lord had said 
that he would have contradicted himself and uttered the 
opposite which he spoke to Satan; for in the former 



FEOM WHAT CHRIST DOES NOT MAKE US FREE 31 

instance he taught we should respect natural law, and 
here he would bid us defy it. 

Moreover, the best Christian Scholarship has proven 
that this entire paragraph in the sixteenth of Mark 
is a human interpolation. Christianity does not have 
to be proved, nor does it stand in what savors of jug- 
glery. It has better and more consistent evidence than 
that. 

But the objector quotes the mishap which befell Paul 
when a serpent came out of the burning fagots and 
stung him, and that Paul felt no harm. This is true, 
and yet quite different from the truth the Saviour 
brought out in his answer to the devil. Paul was not 
hunting for serpents, he was not walking around, so to 
speak, with a chip on his shoulder daring a snake to 
gting him. He was not throwing himself from the 
pinnacle. He was not defying the laws of Nature. 
If he had we would beyond all question have had a 
different narrative from the pen of Luke, and it would 
have been Paul who died, while the snake got away. 

Nevertheless our God is greater than any of his laws, 
and when the need comes he can keep fire from burn- 
ing, lions from killing, snakes from poisoning, when his 
children are set upon by their enemies of hell and earth. 
But the same God teaches us both in grace and nature 
not to thrust ourselves unsent of him among tigers, not 



32 A BOX OF TREASURE 

to stick our fingers in rattlesnake dens, and in a word 
not to cast ourselves from pinnacles, trusting that be- 
cause we have his love in our hearts that we will not 
fall and be dashed to pieces on the ground. 

A third law is seen in Civil Jurisprudence, and all 
that legislation needed for good government and the 
protection of the citizens of the land. 

It needs no argument to prove the necessity of such 
law in view of the world we live in and the effect that 
sin has had upon the manners and morals of the nations. 

Christ honored such human codes when he paid 
taxes or tribute, and when he said, "Render unto Caesar 
the things that are Caesar's.'' 

Evidently the freedom which the Saviour brings us 
is not to make us dodge the assessor and tax collector, 
or graver still, turn us into Moonshiners, avoiders and 
cheaters of custom charges and revenue stamps, and 
finally anarchists and outlaws. Christianity proper 
makes a good citizen out of its converts, while the man 
filled with its highest grace is bound to be the very 
best in the truest sense in the community and state. 

A fourth law is fouad in Church or Ecclesiastical 
Legislation. 

God's kingdom has a temporal and material side. 
Under the direction of heaven it has a taxation seen 
in tithes and offerings. It has necessarily forms of 



FROM WHAT CHRIST DOES NOT MAKE US FREE 33 

Worship. It possesses sacraments and ordinations. It 
inducts men into offices and works to which God has 
called them, and provides for their mental furnishing 
and training, and for their temporal support. 

Experience proves the wisdom and even the necessity 
of some kind of church law and government. Candi- 
dates are to be received into membership and the min- 
istry; offenders are to be disciplined and punished; 
sacraments are to be administered; the work is to be 
regulated and directed in many ways, and ordaining 
hands are to be laid suddenly on no man. 

Christ recognized all these different features of church 
form and discipline, and honored them. He watched 
approvingly the people putting their gifts into the 
treasury, commended a poor woman when she gave all 
she had, told the cleansed lepers to show themselves 
to the priests, and advised the people to obedience to 
right teachings of the rulers and priests, but not to do 
as they did when they went wrong. 

As we have studied the great blessing of ^^freedom 
indeed,'' which the Saviour has for the souls of his fol- 
lowers, we cannot but feel that it is intended to make 
us a member of the Church of Christ in the highest 
and best sense of the word. No person should be more 
faithful in the use of the means of grace, or keep the 
spirit as well as the letter of the commandments, or be 



34 A BOX OF TREASURE 

more spiritual in his inner life and more devoted to 
God and man in his outer life, than the individual who 
has liad his heart cleansed and filled with Perfect Love. 
Such Christians are not intended of God to leave the 
church but stay in it, bring back its lost glory and 
power and draw the people heavenward by their holy 
shining and burning. 

When a man claiming the blessing of sanetification 
construes it into a freedom that delivers him from the 
observance of wise and good limitations and exactions 
placed upon him by one of the branches of the church 
of Christ, laws founded in the very necessities of the 
case, we cannot but think that the seceding brother has 
either blundered in his judgment, or made a mistake 
in thinking that he enjoys the blessing of holiness. 

Of course if a State or Church would impose a law 
upon us contrary to the Law of God, and would exact 
an obedience of us which was violative of the Command- 
ments of Heaven, then our allegiance and loyalty be- 
longs primarily and preeminently to the Lord and not 
to man. We must obey God rather than men. 

But otherwise, where the laws of nation and church 
are right we can possess, the "freedom indeed" which 
Christ promised, and still be good, tax-paying citizens, 
and faithful, God-honoring church members. 

A Fifth Law clearlv rccogmized in the Bible, and 



FROM WHAT CHRIST DOES NOT MAKE US FREE 35 

plainly evidenced in life, and in every one's life, can 
be properly called Constitutional Law. 

Certain kinds of meats, drinks, fruits and vegetables 
do not agree with everybody. The saying born of this 
fact is an old one, that what is food to one is poison to 
another, and just as a pot of wild greens came near 
wiping out a theological school in Elisha's day, so there 
are dishes that if heartily partaken of by some people 
would as inevitably cause the illness and most likely the 
death of almost as many. The smell and taste of 
squash, the burr artichoke and pumpkin pie invariably 
nauseate the writer, but we know of others who have 
doubtless better taste, to whom the artichoke is the 
greatest of delicacies, and the deeper the pumpkin is on 
the pastry the better they like it. Evidently we are 
running under different physical governments here, 
although fully justified and wholly sanctified. 

Then we notice that certain meats eaten in the torrid 
zone will produce scrofulous and other kinds of disease, 
but in the frigid regions these same fat meats and 
blubber help to keep numbers of the human race well 
and strong. It takes lime water only four days to put 
the writer in a sense hors du combat, while there are 
others who would be as sick and helpless without it. 

Truly every one should be fully persuaded in his own 
mind from what he has found out in other departments 



36 A BOX OF TEEASUEE 

of his being that were not the moral realm. And then 
we should judge one another in '^meats and drinks" 
no more. 

As far as we have been able to observe, the blessing 
of holiness does not alter or annul the constitutional 
law we are writing about. If change comes at all it 
will be by the strange transformation which is thought 
to come about in periods of seven years. 

A Sixth Law in the Bible, appearing in directions 
and command, and as plainly emphasized in the very 
spirit of Christianity, is the law of Propriety, Courtesy 
and Politeness. 

Respect for ourselves, and regard for others demand 
from us certain regulations of conduct, and a considera- 
tion for the person, feelings, and rights of every one 
we meet and have to do with in life. 

One inspired writer bids us condescend to men of 
low estate; to be pitiful, to be courteous. In the thir- 
teenth of First Corinthians we have the legislation of 
love as well as its charming picture. While the Golden 
Rule to do unto others as w^e would that they should 
do unto us, is the great commandment that exhibits, as 
well as protects, the life of which we are writing. 

Holiness is never given to the child of God that he 
might be rude and personally offensive and obnoxious 
in his words and manners. It is true that holy people 



FROM WHAT CHRIST DOES NOT MAKE US FREE 37 

can give from their knees, in the pew, and from the 
platform and pulpit, terrific warnings and rebukes that 
will blanch faces and cause the stoutest hearts to 
tremble ; but this is not scolding, such people are utterly 
removed from the doing of a coarse, ungenteel thing, 
and at the same time feel the unclouded smile and 
full favor of God while delivering messages that offend 
and even infuriate the people to whom they are ad- 
dressed. 

Paul on one occasion told the high priest that he was 
a whited wall. But he was not angry. He who drew 
this striking picture wrote the love chapter of the Bible, 
and penned an epistle to Philemon that only a refined 
gentleman could have ^vritten. 

The Saviour was filled with love when he gave Jeru- 
salem up, when he upbraided Capernaum, and when 
he delivered that fearful arraignment of the Scribes 
and Pharisees. But where can be found an3rwhere in 
his life of sharp tests and bitter trials a single instance 
where he was coarse, rude and personally offensive. 

Some persons have certainly failed to understand the 
nature of sanctification, and the realm in which it 
moves, when they conclude it gives them the right to 
be disagreeable and discourteous in their manner, to pry 
into one's family history, to worm confidences and con- 
fessions out of people to gratify their own curiosit}^, and 



38 A BOX OF TREASUEE 

to fiercely lay down law and testimony fcr others to 
follow. 

We know of a woman who thinks she is led of God 
to insinuate herself into the confidence of people and 
thereby obtain admissions of guilt and trouble, deluded 
with the idea of a pure motive when her own morbid 
curiosity is the mainspring of the proceeding. She tells 
her victims that they will feel ever so much relieved 
when they have poured their secrets out upon her sym- 
pathetic ear and heart. She ought to have said spittoon 
and slop jar instead of ear and heart. 

A gentleman of our acquaintance gave marching 
orders of a most unmistakable character to just such a 
bonnetted and becrinolined female buzzard. There has 
been peace at that home ever since. 

Others with their mistaken conceptions of freedom, 
feel justified and even commissioned to comment on 
everything and everybody, whether they understand all 
things or not. They are so frank, so open. They really 
meant their mouth when they said open. They are 
constrained to speak their mind. We do not doubt it. 
But there never seems that about their words and spirit, 
to make people feel it is the mind of Christ which they 
possess. 

We know of individuals claiming full salvation who 
cannot be in the company of other peTsons over a minute 



FROM WHAT CHRIST DOES NOT MAKE US FREE 39 

without violating the laws of true politeness, and wound- 
ing, distressing and even disgusting the hearer. Some 
of them wonder why they have been dropped, so to 
speak, by many of their friends and acquaintances. 
Why they make so few a:nd lasting attachments, when 
the explanation is in their own conduct. They broke 
the law of which we are writing, so frequently and ruth- 
lessly that many could not endure them. So the per- 
sistent transgressor was avoided. The penitentiary for 
the violator of moral law; and ostracism from many 
home, social and religious circles for the personally dis- 
agreeable man or woman. 

Who does not know of individuals whose conversa- 
tion abounds in such offensive remarks as "Why, how 
dreadfully you look!" "How old you are getting!" 
"How fast you are breaking!" "I never knew until a 
moment ago that you had a cast in your right eye !" 
"They tell me you wear a wig — is it so?" "I see your 
work as a singer is over, your voice is badly cracked," 
etc., etc. 

One woman in the South at a holiness camp meeting 
asked an evangelist if his teeth were false. He smiled 
forbearingly and told her they were genuine and rooted 
in the gum according to nature. Then she requested 
the privilege of feeling them with her fingers to have 
the proof of touch and thereby be able to settle a dis- 



40 A BOX OF TREASURE 

pute among several of her female friends relative to 
the matter. 

We asked the brother if he submitted to the im- 
pertinence, and he said, "Yes." Our rejoinder v/as 
that he should have brought down the two rows of in- 
cisors on that investigating digital, so that its owner 
would never have doubted his dental furnishing again; 
and also at the same time obtained a lesson on the 
wisdom of being polite and well bred which would 
have lasted her until her dying day. 

We do not doubt that holiness has suffered in nu- 
merous places because of the grave mistake made by 
some of its believers and advocates, in thinking that 
Christ, in His great blessing, gave us liberty to be per- 
sonally offensive and obnoxious to other people. We 
find in many localities parties who seem to be bitterly 
opposed to the doctrine and experience of sanctification, 
when upon investigation we discover that they really 
know nothing of the teaching and had anything but 
correct ideas of the experience. Their animosity and 
antagonism had been aroused by unv/ise, unfortunate 
and even reprehensible modes adopted by certain in- 
dividuals in presenting the truth and life. 

We have witnessed in the sessions of annual con- 
ferences, as arbitrary ruling and discourteous treatment, 
by the chair of preachers and la3^men who were power- 



FROM WHAT CHRIST DOES NOT MAKE US FREE 41 

less to defend themselves, as ever took place in the 
world's political and legislative halls. May we be spared 
every such spectacle in the ranks and amid the gather- 
ings of people claiming the blessing of full salvation. 
We should be an example on the lines of moderation, 
kindness, consideration of others, and show a beautiful 
unvarying Christian courtesy to all. This would only 
have to be seen to be admired and commended, while 
such living would at the same time most powerfully 
preach the man of Galilee whose spirit we say we 
possess, and whose commandments and words we follow. 

Thus far we have written about six different kinds of 
law that we are not made free from, through obtain- 
ment of sanctification or Christ's Baptism with the Holy 
Ghost, viz., the moral, natural, civil, church, constitu- 
tional, and the law of conduct as shown in propriety, 
courtesy and all that pertains to good breeding. 

Well for the church, for the cause of God and for 
humanity that Christ never came to release us from the 
proper observance of the above six laws. There is a 
positive blessed freedom given in addition to this, but 
the man who keeps faithfully the requirements discussed 
in this chapter is already a free man and a most proper 
candidate for the Baptism with the Holy Ghost which 
will make him free indeed. 



IV 



THE HOLY GHOST NO FAILURE 

The caption above may strike some readers as peculiar 
and needless, but will not others, who are studying the 
times, watching God's providential movements, and 
listening to the outspoken fears, opinions and judgments 
of great numbers of people. 

That the Holy Spirit can be no failure we might 
well know from his divine personality as well as 
Executive Office. He is God, and to him has been en- 
trusted by the Father and Son the work of applying, 
advancing and completing the great plan of Redemp- 
tion, until the world is brought back to God, and Christ 
appears in the clouds to judge and reward mankind. 

The ground of the suspicion and accusation that the 
work and dispensation of the Holy Ghost is a failure 
appears to be in the apparently unmoved masses of 
mankind all around us; the lethargy and powerlessness 
of the church; the seemingly superior force of an evil 
habit over a man as compared with the influence which 
Heaven has upon him; the backsliding of Christians; 

42 



HOLY GHOST NO FAILURE 43 

and the spectacle of the great unconverted world out- 
side of the church. 

All these things are grave enough to contemplate to 
be sure, but every one of them is explainable and that, 
too, without a single impeachment upon the ability of 
the Holy Spirit to meet successfully and triumphantly 
all these conditions, and to do thoroughly and com- 
pletely all that the Bible says he can, and will yet cer- 
tainly perform. 

Two things should not be forgotten by these afore- 
said criticizers and judges of Heaven, and discounters 
of the great Executive of the Trinity, and that is, that 
men are endowed with moral freedom, and so cannot be 
forced. Again, that in view of the ignorance, prejudice, 
spiritual darkness, sin and power of the devil, time must 
be given the Holy One to accomplish his mission. And 
yet thus far he has hardly had a chance. As yet his 
work has been sporadic, and not as it will be. His 
human agents and instruments have been slow and 
stupid. The great majority in the church have never 
been "born of the Spirit." A mere handful have been 
baptized with the Holy Ghost. His so-called people get 
sidetracked and clear off the track, impeding and hinder- 
ing the work on the outside world. Difficulties that 
would be appalling and paralyzing to any but an 



44 - A BOX OF TREASURE 

omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent God are con- 
stantly on the hands of the Spirit. 

And yet in spite of all, he, the Holy One, is moving 
on and up with his work, and will yet bring the nations 
to the feet of Christ. Knowing his boundless resources 
he has nothing to fear as to the final outcome. And 
like him whom he represents, he will not faint, nor be 
discouraged until all be fulfilled and the universal 
victory shall take place which is prophesied in the 
Word of God. 

The Holy Ghost has been sent forth to reprove or 
convict the world of sin. And for that matter tliis 
has already been done. The light which lighteth every 
man that cometh into the world has visited each soul, 
whether that being is in heathen or Christian lands. 
It is not necessary to know there is a Holy Ghost to be 
convicted and reproved by the Holy Ghost. Nor is it 
essential to be in a meeting. Nor is it required that 
a man be willing to be convicted. Here is a work of 
the Spirit that can take place independently of the con- 
sent of a free moral agent. 

According to the testimony of all the ages the Holy 
Spirit has been no failure on this line. He certainly 
got in a most successful, work one morning in Jerusalem 
when a multitude in deep distress cried to the disciples, 
"Men and brethren, what shall we do?" 



HOLY GHOST NO FAILUEE 45 

Then let the reader ask himself if there was any lack 
in the trouble for sins or sin wrought in his case 
by the Spirit prior to his conversion or sanctification. 
Did he not see himself in all his weakness and helpless- 
ness, and sin in all its blackness and vileness? Could 
he have stood it, if the burden had been heavier? No 
doubt about it, that it was a pej?fect work. 

Again, the Father uses the Spirit in regenerating the 
soul; the first work being made distinctive and peculiar 
by the figure, ^'^Born of the Spirit." The Son employs 
him in the second work of grace described as "The 
Baptism with the Holy Ghost." It is noticeable that 
both of the other persons of the Trinity take the Holy 
Ghost as their tremendous instrument or agent of power. 
They certainly have confidence in him. 

It is also to be observed that whoever claims to obtain 
or arrive at these two moral states or conditions other- 
wise than by the power of the Holy Ghost, soon treats 
the community without exception, to a first-class ex- 
hibition of spiritual ignorance, fanaticism, humbuggery 
and make believe, and inevitably followed by the char- 
acter downfall and life failure, as the building built on 
the sand was certain to go when the floods came, accord- 
ing to the parable of Christ. 

With all who have allowed the Spirit to regenerate 
and sanctify, we have yet to hear a single one ^ay that 



46 A BOX OF TREASURE 

he or she was dissatisfied with the work. Judging from 
their radiant faces, and their ringing testimonies, they 
are not only content but exultant over what the Holy 
Ghost did. They cannot even speak of it without the 
heart swelling, the eyes filling, and the voice giving 
glory to God. So there seems to be no failure there. 

As for the seemingly stronger power of sinful habit 
over a man, as compared to the delivering influence 
of the Holy Ghost, it is only apparent and not really so. 

The condition of being perfectly freed from the 
dominion of every form of sin, is, that we give up the 
sin itself first. 'Xet the wicked forsake his way — and 
I will have mercy upon him," says the Lord. 

We have been struck with the fact that deliverance 
from the tobacco habit will never be given if the man 
cherishes in his mind an intention to return to it. Nor 
will the work be done, while the wretched little com- 
promises are seen in chewing sticks, wax and gum. 

We know of an evangelist who carries around with 
him for the habit-ridden victim something that looks 
like tobacco with licorice in it. The Spirit will not 
honor such a half-way surrender. So his power is not 
seen in the case, and he is misjudged as to his ability 
and counted a failure. 

What an army of men and women could stand up 
to-day and declare truthfully the complete rescue from 



HOLY GHOST NO FAILURE 47 

alcohol, narcotics and every acquired and perverted ap- 
petite of the flesh, giving all the glory to God through 
the power of the Holy Ghost. They would all say that 
he was no failure in their case. 

As for the lethargy and lack of power in the church, 
this state of things does not arise from the fact that 
the Holy Spirit could not in a single second, vitalize, 
electrify, glorify and turn the church loose on the world, 
powerful, exultant and irresistible; but the trouble and 
cause of failure is the neglect of the same people to 
meet the conditions which the Spirit makes imperative 
before he will work in us and through us upon the 
nations. If the tarrying in the Upper Eoom for the 
Baptism with the Holy Ghost, and for that alone, is not 
separated from educational and missionary programmes, 
the Spirit will not fall on us, and w^e will not be able 
to fall on the people, and the people will not fall before 
the Lord. 

As for the ability of the Holy Ghost to finish the 
work, committed to him by the Father and Son, of 
bringing the nations to the feet of Christ, and the world 
back to God, none can doubt who read correctly the 
Word of God. 

As we have already said, the Father and Son have 
perfect confidence in his power to carry on and com- 
plete the work of Redemption, in this Third and Last 



48 A BOX OF TREASURE 

Dispensation, called the Dispensation of the Holy Ghost. 

Christ said it was expedient that he go away that the 
Spirit might come. In no place does the Word of God 
say that it will be expedient to recall the Spirit because 
of his failure, and so another and fourth Dispensation 
set up. This would prove the Saviour to have made a 
blunder, if such a statement appeared, or would present 
the world with a double conflicting and contradictory 
teaching in the Bible. 

We are glad that we do not belong to a class or 
body of men who belittle or discount the work and 
power of the Holy Ghost in saying that the world is 
getting worse and worse, and that he will have to be 
retired and give way to some other kind of Dispensa- 
tion on the order of a temporal kingdom. The Bible 
does not say the world is getting worse, but that under 
certain conditions mentioned, "Evil men shall wax worse 
and worse." This is quite different. Nor does the 
Bible say that there is another Dispensation to follow 
this, but declares we are in "the Last Days," or, more 
correctly, "The Last Dispensation." 

No, the Holy Ghost is able to bring the nations and 
all the adversaries of Christ down to his feet, and this 
he can and will do WITHOUT CHRIST COMING 
VISIBLY AND PHYSICALLY TO HIS RELIEF! 
Two verses out of many prove this. They are in He- 



HOLY GHOST NO FAILURE 49 

brews, tenth chapter, and they settle the fact of Christ 
remaining in heaven while the Holy Ghost makes a com- 
plete work of the Gospel on earth. The verses are the 
twelfth and thirteenth — "But this man, after he had 
offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the 
right hand of God; from henceforth expecting till his 
enemies be made his footstool." 

The reader will observe that Christ remains sitting 
on his throne in heaven! He does not come back to 
earth to assist a failing Holy Ghost ! He waits on his 
throne in heaven expectant, until his enemies are con- 
quered and his cause won. And these enemies are made 
his footstool ! It is evident that he is still sitting on 
his throne when the victory, clothed and described in 
Buch a remarkable and convincing figure, is accom- 
plished. And mind you, achieved by the Holy Ghost 
on earth for a Christ sitting on his throne in heaven. 

No, thank God, the Holy Ghost is no failure! Some 
preachers and teachers may so falsely instruct the 
people, but the Word of God most plainly and power- 
fully declares to the contrary. 



THE FICTION OF NATURAL GOODNESS 

There is in every age a lot of talk about natural 
goodness ; a spiritual condition, character and life which 
is said to exist apart from any creative and keeping 
work of God. 

It is evident that such a claim made for humanity is 
a direct blow given to the Bible, a stab at the truth 
of Redemption through Christ, and exalts the human 
race to a plane where they need nothing or little from 
the hands of God to make them what they should be 
on earth, and qualify them for a blessed existence in 
Heaven. 

We can see that if there is such a thing as natural 
goodness, then whoever possesses that most excellent and 
desirable grace, is not dependent on the Blood of Christ 
and the work of the Holy Spirit in the change of their 
hearts and transformation of their lives. Whether they 
constitute a small or large class, nevertheless it remains 
that here is a body of people who can reach the skies 
without traveling the Mt. Calvary and Upper Room 
Route. 

50 



FICTION OF NATURAL GOODNESS 51 

This makes things embarrassing for the preacher in 
the pulpit. For if all in the audience have this natural 
goodness, then neither the Bible nor his ministry is 
needed. If a part of the congregation are in this lovely 
condition then the preaching cannot possibly benefit a 
goodly portion of the assembly. They might as well get 
up and return home. 

In contradiction of this conceit and false teaching of 
men, the Bible affirms that the whole race has been pol- 
luted by the Fall, that none are good or righteous in 
themselves, that the heart is deceitful and desperately 
wicked, while Christ declares that out of the heart pro- 
ceedeth every vile and unholy thing. He gave a dread- 
ful list of some of the dark brood which nest in the soul. 
He did not make a complete catalogue, but mentioned 
evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, 
false witness and blasphemies. He made no exception, 
but said "the heart.'' 

In denial of this, men point to good children, to 
lovely moral people, who never belonged to a church, to 
respectable, benevolent^ kind individuals who never pro- 
fessed a change of heart, etc., etc., etc. 

In rebuttal of this assumption of natural goodness 
that is claimed to exist apart from God, we say that 
such teaching would establish two sources of goodness, 
and one of these not in God? Whereas, the Bible de- 



52 A BOX OF TREASURE 

clares that in the absolute independent and underivable 
sense there is none good but one and that is God. 

In further disproof of what is called natural good- 
ness — we make the following observations: 

.First, that much of so-called natural goodness can 
be explained in the unrecognized early conversion of 
children. 

The child's heart has not reached the hardness and re- 
sistance of the adult, and is quite susceptible to religious 
lives and influence about it. Often children are con- 
verted at three and four years of age, and frequently 
without having been in a Gospel meeting. 

A preacher's smile, word, or kindly act may have been 
the agency under God, and the little one received con- 
verting grace and hardly knew the character of what 
had happened. Nor are the grown people around dis- 
posed to believe that a child can know God, and so a 
work of salvation was done, which while unheralded and 
unadmitted by surrounding people, yet transformed a 
life. 

This change, that ushered the young being into a real 
spiritual life, is set down by the family and relatives 
as an instance of natural goodness, and yet it was God's 
work, only He did not get the credit. The honor and 
glory was given to so-called natural goodness. 



FICTION OF NATURAL GOODNESS 53 

Second, much so-called natural goodness can be ac- 
counted for through the preventing grace of God. 

God cannot convert or sanctify any one against that 
person's will, but He can and does prevent much evil 
from taking place in one's life through providential deal- 
ings and that without interfering with a man's free 
moral agency. The opening of a religious book, the 
meeting with a good man, the singing of a hymn, the 
sound of a church bell in the distance, can all be used by 
the Spirit of God in disarming evil, changing the cur- 
rent of feeling, arousing conscience and creating better 
desires, intentions and living. 

In some such way God kept Abimelech from sin ; and 
when that worthy was disposed to praise and crown 
himself for his abstinence, the Lord informed him that 
he had nothing to congratulate himself for in the sense 
of personal worth and conquest, that He the Lord had 
kept him from wronging a good man like Abraham. 

Third, a lot of so-called natural goodness can be ex- 
plained by the fact of an environment of ease, a life 
of comfortable and delightful circumstances of a ma- 
terial character. 

A tiger with a full stomach and a lamb on the inside 
of him, is quite different from the same tiger with an 
empty body and a fat sheep on the outside of him. In 
the first situation he acts as if he was himself of the 



54 A BOX OF TREASURE 

innocent, woolly tribe, in the second he is beheld in the 
true light — a tiger. 

We knew a well-to-do Southern family where every- 
tliing ran smoothly, love abounded, and family prayers 
was held morning and night. It seemed to be a re- 
ligious household without any profession of saving grace. 

The Civil War came on and impoverished them. 
Their slaves were set free, the great cotton plantation 
was overrun with weeds, and finally sold under mort- 
gage. With this material change of temporalities came 
an awful alteration to this "naturally good" household. 
The father became a reprobate, the sons drunkards, two 
daughters were addicted to the opium habit, and a third 
fell into a life of shame. The entire home circle went 
down with a crash. 

Instead of having religious principle, and redeenied 
character as a life foundation, they had been resting on 
cotton bales, rice barrels and sugar hogsheads. And 
when adversity swept these supporting pillars away, the 
little fanciful edifice of natural goodness went down 
with the flimsy undergirding, and nothing was left. 

Truly it is easy to play at goodness, and ape piety, 
when the store room is full, the house is beautifully 
furnished, the automobile is at the door, the bank ac- 
count large, and the income more than abundant. But 
only let a cyclone of financial ruin sweep that same 



FICTION OF NATURAL GOODNESS 55 

family into beggary, and now where are the sweet 
smiles and cheerful manners of the famous so-called 
natural goodness? Truly, there is a difference between 
a full and an empty tiger. 

A fourth explanation of natural goodness can be found 
in simulated excellence. 

There is no question but that we have a class of peo- 
ple in the land who for certain reasons practice some of 
the spirit and aspects of Christianity. They hang on 
their own sapless boughs one or more of the fruits of 
the regenerated life. 

For some purpose or policy of their own they abound 
in benevolences that are of a public nature. Their names 
are seen frequently if not constantly in every list of 
charity where the donors are given to the world in the 
columns of a newspaper. 

Of course all such philanthropy is not genuine Chris- 
tian fruit, but it appears so to many, and the simulator 
obtains what he is after, public recognition and reward. 
Moreover, they get the credit of being good, kind, chari- 
table, and yet never belonged to a church, bowed at an 
altar, or prayed and wept through to anything that is 
given from the skies. Behold they are good without 
the help of God, they have natural goodness, and the 
Bible is discredited, and the Saviour's redemption is 
slapped in the face and denied again. 



56 A BOX OF TREASURE 

But Christ taught that if we gave to be seen of men, 
what claim could we make to the life, spirit and char- 
acter He came to bring? According to the Saviour's 
teaching as to secrecy of giving, the loudly proclaimed 
benevolence is an offence to God and actually a sin. 

There was a New England nurse named Jane Tappan 
who for years was considered the soul of generosity. 
She was always making presents to people. And as she 
belonged to no church, and made no claim to any ex- 
perience of grace, then of course, her kindness and 
benevolence was held up as a proof of the natural good- 
ness of the heart. 

But after awhile the awful discovery was made that 
she murdered a number of patients. She generally se- 
lected those who had full pocketbooks, and so Natural 
Goodness Jane was liberal on money stolen from the 
pockets and purses of patients whom she had killed. 

A fifth explanation of natural goodness can be found 
in the restraints of law and the fear of consequence. 

Truly these two facts make a large lot of people act 
as if they had been converted and sanctified. It is a 
charming spectacle to behold thousands of persons 
thronging our streets and behaving themselves so beau- 
tifully. They are so polite and considerate of each 
other, they smile, bow, give right of way, stand aside at 



FICTION OF NATURAL GOODNESS 57. 

the crossings, pick up dropped handkerchiefs, etc., that 
it looks like they all had perfect love. 

Then see them passing great stores where diamonds, 
watches, gold chains and silverware are flashing in the 
show case, and only a thin pane of glass between them 
and the treasure. And yet they are so good they will 
not break that fragile barrier and protection and make 
off with thousands of dollars. They even pass by open, 
uncovered fruit stands, and will not take a single peach 
or plum. Oh, how good these people are. Truly, the 
Millennium is in sight. And yet most of these per- 
sons never attend a church and have never experienced 
the saving grace of God. They all seem naturally 
good, and under their coats and dresses feathers doubt- 
less are sprouting on their shoulder blades. This is a 
goodness that cannot keep from evolving wings. 

And yet every sensible reader knows that of that 
crowd behaving itself so well, there are thousands who 
fairly long to rifle the show window, snatch a roll of 
bank notes from the cashier's desk, and would do so but 
for the fear of law, and the after consequences in jail 
and penitentiary. 

The same principle is seen at work in the peniten- 
tiary, where a thousand men behave themselves per- 
fectly. They arise from their beds, fall into line, come 
promptly to their tables at meal hours, stick to their 



58 A BOX OF TREASURE 

work all day, and go to bed promptly without breaking 
a single law throughout the whole day. 

It looks well, has the appearance of goodness, but 
as we all must know is simply a rectitude and regu- 
larity of conduct bom of dread of the dark cell and 
cruel punishment of other forms and kinds. It is not a 
natural, but an unnatural goodness bom of a great fear. 

We once saw a cobra in a large box that had a glass 
lid or cover through which we could observe the dread- 
ful and deadly creature. He looked quite gentle and 
was very quiet. It seemed as if he had never stung or 
hurt anybody in all its life, nor would ever consent to 
do so. But we caught a glance out of his eye as we 
bent over the coiled up reptile which was decidedly 
startling. It seemed to say, "If I was only out of this 
box I would show you who I was, and what I could do." 

And we said, I believe you, and thank God for the 
strong box that restrains you! 

In like manner we are called upon to behold the Nat- 
ural Goodness of the human race, and we mark certain 
glances, movements, and hear certain hissings and utter- 
ances that make us grateful to Heaven for the strong 
box of the law which confines and restrains this much 
boasted tribe of the naturally good. 

After all it is a cobra held in check by public opinion, 
legislation, policemen, jails, penitentiaries and scaffolds. 



FICTION OF NATURAL GOODNESS 59 

If it could have its way on our streets and in our homes, 
pandemonium would break loose, and hell itself would 
appear to have come to abide on earth. 



VI 



THE TRAVAIL OF ZION 



The Bible throughout plainly teaches that the salva- 
tion of the world is to come through the church. And 
it is equally clear in teaching that it is not to be by a 
cold formal ecclesiasticism, but a holy church whose 
glory shall be beheld and felt and whose divine power 
shall cause the nations to flock to the light of her burn- 
ing, calling her gates salvation and her walls praise. 

Christ's prayer for the church was that it might be 
sanctified, that the world might believe and know that 
God had sent Him for its redemption. 

Ezekiel said that the heathen would know the Lord, 
when He should be sanctified in His people before their 
eyes. Certainly He is not ^^sanctified" or "made holy" 
in most of the denominations and congregations to-day 
before the eyes of the world. 

Another prophet, in perfect harmony with the teach- 
ings of the Scripture throughout declares that only when 
Zion travails will sons and daughters be born unto God. 

Travail is one of the sharpest pains known in the 
physical realm. Its cry is simply heart-breaking. Few 

60 



TRAVAIL OF ZION 61 

can hear it without tears, while husbands are scarce in- 
deed who can listen at all to the agonized wail. With 
faces set and white we have seen them take their hats 
and rush away from the sound of the pitiful groans of 
the one they loved best on earth. God takes this physi- 
cal pang and heart-breaking wail and applies it to the 
church, and says that such a suffering, burden and ago- 
nizing cry must come on His people, before sons and 
daughters are born unto Him, or in other words, before 
genuine conversions can take place. 

In view of this inspired statement several questions 
at once arise in the mind. 

One is, what shall we say of the policy of those pastors 
and evangelists who, passing by and over the state of 
the church as we see it to-day, endeavor to secure a re- 
vival among the unconverted. God conditions salvation 
among the lost on the spiritual life of the church and a 
very high plane at that. And yet these leaders of the 
people deliberately ignore what the Divine Being says 
about the matter and would have judgment commence 
among the lost when the Lord says it must begin at the 
House of God. 

It is a well known fact that evangelists who observe 
the divine requirement and insist upon the Upper Room 
experience for the church, before conversions can be ex- 
pected in the streets as at the Day of Pentecost, that all 



62 A BOX OF TREASURE 

Buch preachers and leaders are avoided by leading con- 
gregations, union meetings and conferences, and work- 
ers are sought and selected who "let the church alone 
and go for sinners," as it is commonly said. 

They seem not to know, or have determined to forget 
that God will not go into business with a morally spotted 
partner; that He insists that they who bear the vessels 
of the Lord should be clean; that in unmistakable il- 
lustration of His plan He made one hundred and twenty 
of His most devoted disciples and followers tarry ten 
days in Jerusalem until they received the Baptism with 
the Holy Ghost, and then, and not until then, did the 
revival break out in the streets where we see three 
thousand bom of the Spirit in one day, and five thou- 
sand the next day. Zion was in travail and sons and 
daughters were born unto God by scores and hundreds 
and thousands. 

Of course it is very evident to the spiritually illum- 
ined why the divine plan is not approved, relished or 
followed by most of the churches to-day. It brings an 
attention on themselves that they do not desire; it rolls 
an awful obligation upon them which they do not pro- 
pose to assume; it requires a going down before God 
and men, a cleansing from all sin, a dying out to this 
world and a living for and in God that is not on their 
program at all. Nor will they h-ave it, or listen to a 



TRAVAIL OF ZION 63 

in.'an who preaches and urges upon them such an hum- 
bling, praying, seeking and finding. 

It is not the financial outlay of the meeting that these 
church members dread. On the contrary, it is well 
known that if they can secure an evangelist who will 
"let the church alone and go for sinners out in the 
world,'^ they give largely and liberally to such a man 
and meeting. It is far easier for such people to go down 
deep into their pocket books than to go down low at the 
altar. Giving up money is far less diflScult with them 
than surrendering sins and yielding up the entire self 
to God. Liberality touches only the vest pocket and a 
very small section of the person, but holiness takes in 
the whole man. 

This is the reason that the Holiness Evangelist leaves 
a place with but little over his travelling expenses and 
can lay up nothing against the "rainy day,'^ and the 
time of a helpless old age, while another kind of evan- 
gelist goes off with five hundred to two thousand dollars 
from every meeting. The congregation or audience 
gladly pays down the aforesaid "blood money" for the 
privilege of being "let alone," of not being urged to 
obtain holiness, or of coming into a great soul agony over 
the salvation of men. Down in their hearts these givers 
to such a meeting know that they have escaped cheaply 



64 A BOX OF TREASURE 

by the payment of twenty-five, fifty or one hundred 
dollars. 

"We have often wondered how such workers feel as 
they go away with the blood money of lost souls in their 
pockets, knowing they have not declared the whole coun- 
sel of God, that they have withheld essential truth, and 
completely ignored the method God lays down for a real 
revival and the genuine salvation of men. 

A second question that arises in the mind is that 
where God's plain commands and directions are not fol- 
lowed for the obtainment of a meeting of supernatural 
transforming and converting power, what are we to 
think of the paraded, printed and trumpeted results of 
all such union and so-called gospel services? How are 
we to regard the converts and accessions to the church 
of these same greatly advertised meetings? God says 
before there can be conversions, or sons and daughters 
born unto Him, Zion must travail. But in these meet- 
ings Zion did not travail. There was no upper room 
tarrying nor upper room receiving of the Baptism with 
the Holy Ghost. No messages were given declaring that 
judgment must begin at the House of God. The evan- 
gelist had been corresponded with and bought off be- 
forehand with the express understanding that he should 
preach to the goats or the. sinners out in the world. So 
Zion not receiving the attention God demands, and the 



TRAVAIL OF ZION 65 

health of God's people not attended to, there was not 
only no travail of the church, but as the Bible says, 
"Zion had no strength to bring forth." 

"We stand amazed at the utter ignorance shown by 
many leaders in the church of the law of analogy which 
God lays down for our information and guidance in this 
matter. 

In the home life, a certain all important period af- 
fecting especially one member of the family is most 
anxiously prepared for in the building up and strength- 
ening of her upon whom the great trial is to come. 
Every sacrifice is made, and every attention is devoted to 
her in view of the approaching crisis. For if in that 
hour she has not strength to bring forth, there is not 
only no life added to the household and family, but there 
are really two deaths. The mother then is the object 
of supreme interest, properly and necessarily if we 
vrould see a son or daughter born into the family. 

At once the thoughtful spiritual person must recognize 
the philosophy and meaning of the Holiness Movement. 
It is to get Zion ready to bring forth children to God. It 
is to prepare the church as a spiritual mother to have 
genuine conversions, to present sons and daughters unto 
the Almighty. 

We repeat the question then, what are the kind of ac- 
cessions to the church that we are having to-day in our 



66 A BOX OF TREASURE 

Bo-called Gospel Union Meetings; and what are these 
converts that Christianity is getting, and what kind of 
eons and daughters of God are these that are being re- 
ported, that come not only from a non-travailing, but 
from a dead mother? 

Can a dead mother bring forth offspring? Must we 
close our understanding to the laws of analog}^, and deny 
the Word of God, and say that this card-signing crowd 
of so-called converts have been born of God through a 
spiritually dead mother ? 

Reformation is not transformation. The first a man 
can do, the second only God can perform. Joining the 
church is not salvation, but being born of the Spirit. 
Now look at the brigade of card signers and by close 
questioning it is evident that they not only know nothing 
of regeneration, but have not even experienced the bitter- 
ness of repentance. They know not a thing about the 
birth of the Spirit, and stare in silence and ignorance 
in answer to the question if they have had the witness 
of the Holy Ghost to their being children of God. 

And lo! These puppet figures, these joiners of a 
meeting house, these doll babies stuffed with saw dust, 
are labeled and printed and publicly called the sons and 
daughters of God. 

Here and there an honest and ripe soul finding salva- 
tion in the deadest meeting, and in no meeting at all as 



TKAVAIL OF ZION 67 

was the case with the writer, is no disproof of the argu- 
ment in this chapter founded on the Word of God. God 
once used an animal to rebuke a disobedient servant of 
His. This was an exception. His rule is to send men 
to reprove men. 

The rule of salvation according to the Bible and ac- 
cording to an analogy laid down by the Lord Himself 
is that Zion must travail before sons and daughters can 
be born unto God. 

In view of this double truth and statement it is easy 
to read through the lines of a report where we are in- 
formed that several hundred were at the altar, but 
nothing is said about several hundred being saved. In 
some newspapers, we are informed, the figures having 
been given by the evangelist that five, six or seven thou- 
sand people passed through the inquiry room. But 
passing through an inquiry room is not salvation. Five 
thousand goats and snakes can move through an inquiry 
room and pass out as they came in, still snakes and 
goats. 

Verily God's way is the true way and the best. When 
Zion travails, sons and daughters will be born unto God. 

He who would prevent the Judgment that must begin 
at the House of God, and would rob the church of Christ 
of the Upper Room experience is really the enemy of his 
race, and is standing between God and the salvation of 
the world. 



VII 



THE FREEDOM OF THE HOLINESS MOVEMENT 

In saving this world, God has not only to supply 
truth and salvation, but is under the necessity of pro- 
viding the best methods for the preservation of this 
truth and the enforcement or carrying out of the Re- 
demption he has furnished. 

Among the factors on the earthly side that was nec- 
essary was the priest. An under shepherd was called by 
the Chief Shepherd ; a human priest was needed to stand 
forth not only as a type but a representative of the 
Great High Priest in heaven. 

The priest called of God to minister to the people 
officiated in the Tabernacle Temple and Synagogue, as 
well as moved about among the homes and walks of his 
fellow beings in the work of doing good. Very naturally 
these appointees of heaven would in time be affected by 
social ties, domestic affections and personal obligations, 
as well as by the strong influence proceeding from the 
councils and sanhedrims of the very ecclesiasticism 
which they were called to serve. 

Consciously or unconsciously in such a position and 
68 



FREEDOM OF HOLINESS MOVEMENT 69 

situation, the truth they stood for originally, would in 
time and in some measure be affected. The complete 
messages from heaven would not be delivered; and so 
the cause of God as well as the best spiritual interests 
of man would be hurt. 

Because of this fact, all foreseen by the Almighty, the 
Prophet was brought forth as a most conspicuous figure 
in the economy of grace. He seems always to have been 
the special messenger of heaven, a man prepared, pro- 
vided for and protected in remarkable ways by the Eling 
of Kings. 

Sometimes this servant of the Lord was fed and de- 
livered by miraculous methods; and always was made to 
feel that God was for him and back of him and would 
see him through every trial, duty, difficulty and danger 
in which he found himself. Dependent alone on his 
Maker for his commission and provision, he was the 
peculiar servant of the Lord, and was felt to be his 
mouthpiece as he came to nations and cities, stood be- 
fore kings, generals and the people, and delivered the 
messages of God without the fear or favor of men 
before his eyes. This peculiar position, this distinct 
dependent relation of the prophet upon God alone, 
secured the courage and boldness that the ambassador 
of the skies ought to have, and also the delivery of 



70 A BOX OF TREASURE 

warning rebuke or commandments in their integrity 
and completeness to the people as the Lord desired. 

In the present day we see the pastor taking the place 
of the priest of olden times. Like his predecessor, the 
office is essential, and so in the pastoral charge and in 
the councils of the different denominations the preacher 
in his appointment is found as a fixture of grace and 
intended by the Lord to be a blessing to his kingdom 
and the world itself. 

But as in the former case, we observe that the social, 
domestic and certain ecclesiastical relations affect the 
servant of God to a greater or less extent in his procla- 
mation of the truth, and in his dealings with the souls 
committed to his care. 

It is very difficult indeed for men in the pastorate to 
remain unaffected and uninfluenced by the oppositions, 
hates, intrigues, friendships, affections, flatteries, and, 
one may add, the briberies which surround and assail the 
office. The Bible speaks of a gift perverting the judg- 
ment, and we need no argument to prove the difficulty 
in the way of a pastor preaching a close Gospel and de- 
livering the awful warnings of the Bible and presenting 
the conditions and the way of obtaining a full salvation 
to a congregation who have been personally kind, and 
fairly loaded the preacher down with benefits. The 
temptatioii is to avoid subjects and to pass in silence 



FREEDOM OF HOLINESS MOVEMENT 71] 

over sins, that these very people ought to hear about be- 
cause of their ignorance of the one, and their guilt in 
regard to the other. 

This is a mere hint in reference to the difficulty and 
danger of the pastoral relation. It is not an easy one. 
So that the whole messages of God are not heard by 
many of the large audiences gathered every Sabbath in 
the spacious sanctuaries and imposing cathedrals of the 
land. 

This alarming fact necessitates another order of the 
ministry, clearly recognized in the New Testament and 
used by the Holy Ghost to this day, called the Evange- 
list. The apostle Paul not only shows the difference- 
between the Evangelist and the Pastor, but teaches that 
the former outranks the latter in the mind of God as a 
gift to the kingdom of Grace. 

The Evangelist in some respects takes the place of the 
prophet. He cannot foresee and foretell as did the Seer 
of God, but supported in a different way from the pas- 
tor, freed from many limitations and restrictions that 
are seen in the life of the preacher in charge, burdened 
with special messages from God, and swung providenti- 
ally all over the country, he can deliver warnings, re- 
buke sin, cry against the evils of the day, strike at for- 
mality, unmask hypocrisy and declare a full salvation 



72 A BOX OF TREASURE 

from sin, as other pulpit servants of heaven either can 
not or will not dow 

It is no more intended of God that the Evangelist 
should abuse this freedom and power, than did +he 
prophets. Like them, it is true, he being human, can go 
off on money lines as did Balaam, or suppress or let 
down the truth, and thereby swell the ranks of the false 
prophets who continije to sell themselves out to the 
Ahabs and Jezebels of this world. 

But many of them, thank God! are faithful, and 
eound a Full Salvation and complete messages from the 
skies in the ears of the people. Fed, clothed, protected, 
upheld, delivered and blessed by the Lord who call's them 
to the work, they go where he wants them to go, and 
says what he wants them to say, though men and devils 
rage, and the universe itself should go to pieces. 

In this same line of thought we would observe that 
the church is a spiritual necessity. As a divine institu- 
tion it not only is intended to spread, but to preserve the 
truth. Its teachings, sacraments, ceremonies. Sabbaths, 
worship, regular and special meetings find their exist- 
ence and exercise in the double fact of the will of God 
and the need of man. 

But like the priest and the pastor, the church can 
settle down, lose its aggressiveness, part with its purity 
and forfeit its holy power. It may in different places 



FKEEDOM or HOLINESS MOVEMENT i6 

and ages become in a measure spiritually blinded, deaf- 
ened and even deadened. Unsaved people may swell its 
membership and rule in its councils. Its saved mem- 
bership may become disheartened, discouraged and even 
overpowered by unspiritual elements and forces in the 
congregation. It may fall into ceremonial ruts, be satis- 
fied with a routine of work, substitute Chautauquas and 
conventions for real revivals, and become not only igno- 
rant but even offended at the preaching of a pure and 
full Gospel, and denounce, resent and withstand the 
actual presence and power of the Holy Ghost in tlieir 
midst. 

Because of this, God raises up great religious move- 
ments distinct from what is seen going on in the regular 
ecclesiastical world. Repeatedly these mighty awaken- 
ings and spiritual uprisings have stirred different na- 
tions and the world itself. They were made of God to 
do what the church was failing to do. They deliver 
messages the church is either afraid or disinclined to 
utter. They call the people to complete renunication 
of sin, to perfect obedience to God, and to holiness of 
heart and life. They, as movements, are distinct and 
free from the church, but are really the true friends to 
the church proper, and to the neglected world outside. 

The movement seems to occupy as a body of people 
holding the truth, the same relation to God and the 



74 A BOX OF TREASUEE 

hiiman race, as did the Prophet and the Evangelist as 
individuals. It gives the whole truth and nothing but 
the truth to men, depends constantly upon God, and is 
peculiarly guided, upheld, delivered, honored and 
blessed by the Lord. 

The instant that such a movement takes upon itself 
the form of a church, it gradually loses its power, and 
settles down into the condition already described, and 
becomes respectable, moral and orthodox but also com- 
paratively unctionless and powerless. 

Equally fatal to the movement is it, when it places 
itself under the wing of ecclesiastical authority, getting 
its life from its recognition, and obtaining its orders 
from human instead of divine lips. 

If the movement is of God it is bound to be a true 
friend to his kingdom and church; but to be that best 
friend it has to live, move and have its being through 
the touch, breath, hand and power of God. 

If it takes its directions and commands from man 
rather than from God in its revival and salvation work, 
then it has exchanged divine for human wisdom, leaning 
on the natural and physical, instead of the spiritual and 
supernatural, and has nothing to expect but defeat, 
failure and disaster. Such a course followed by Prophet, 
Evangelist and Holiness Movement of any age would 
instantly end the distinctiveness and peculiar glory of 



FREEDOM OF HOLINESS MOVEMENT 75 

their offices and mission, and leave as one of the lamen- 
table results an emasculated, attenuated and vitiated 
gospel on the hands of men. 

The present day holiness movement is one of the 
great, divine quickenings and uprisings we have been 
describing. It has been raised up of God not to hurt 
the world, but to save it; not to be an enemy to the 
church, but its true friend. 

Its best service to the church, however, can only be 
rendered by a free, independent relation as a religious 
movement. All holiness people should be members of 
some evangelical church of Christ. But the holiness 
movement itself is of God. It has been like another 
John the Baptist sent of God. It has come to arouse, 
rebuke, encourage, teach, fire and fill all in the churches 
who will hear its wonderful messages. 

If it takes the form of an ecclesiasticism, it is but a 
question of time when it will become like the other 
churches, and 'wdll soon need to be awakened, recovered 
and saved as it once did other similar bodies. 

If it places itself under the wing of any church, it will 
then become a mere department of that denomination; 
it will get its orders second-handed instead of from head- 
quarters; the intimate divine relation and vital union 
will be broken up; and spiritual weakness and death 
Vrill again be seen as the result. Receiving its pay and 



76 A BOX OF TREASURE 

its commands from men, it will of necessity cease to be 
the supernatural thing, the flaming Evangel of Truth, 
the God-called, fire-filled and heaven-led movement of 
grace and glory. And while respectability and ortho- 
doxy are left, salvation and holy power falling from the 
skies on the people will be memories of the past. 

The holiness movement to be a blessing to the world 
and to the church cannot afford to get under any but the 
divine wing. It must receive its orders from God. It 
must speak for God, no matter what may be the mes- 
sage, what the surrounding, and what the consequence. 

The holiness movement cannot afford to become popu- 
lar. The instant it tries to please men, it will cease to 
please God, and he will set it aside as he has done 
Prophets and Evangelists who made the same fatal 
mistake. 

The holiness movement cannot afford to sell out to 
Leagues, Fraternities, Communities, Kailway Compa- 
nies, Eich men, or to anybody or anything. Any gift of 
land, houses, or money; any extension of favor, influ- 
ence, patronage of a private or public character, which 
throttles the truth, cuts down the warnings, rebukes and 
proclamations that God would have the people hear, are 
so many chains and fetters to the cause, sio many 
bandages and gags upon the mouths of her preachers, 
and so much Judas blood money for the sale of the beau- 
tiful divine truth of holiness or full salvation. 



FREEDOM OF HOLINESS MOVEMENT 77 

The holiness movement, to be what the Lord wants it, 
must declare the whole counsel of God, keep back 
nothing of his truth as to sin and salvation, and sing, 
pray, preach, shout and live for him without the fear 
or favor of any man or of all men before its eyes. It 
must be peculiarly his messenger of truth; his mouth- 
piece; his evangel; his prophet as of old. 

If we as holiness people become faithless; if we trim 
off and let down in our teaching and living ; if we make 
affinity with Ahab and his crowd ; get allies from Egypt 
and Syria ; take up with prophets who say smooth things 
to please various bodies of people; if we use trumpets 
that give an uncertain sound, and fight with swords in 
the scabbard; if we aim for popularity instead of sal- 
vation, and for the applause of men rather than the 
smile, presence, favor and power of God in our midst; 
then are we already undone! 

The Shekinah will have gone from the mercy seat ! 
Ichabod will be written on the walls of the temple ! Our 
Glory will be departed! Nothing will be left then but 
another spiritual carcass or skeleton bleaching on the 
highway of the past: while God will proceed again to 
raise up another body of people who will be truer ser- 
vants to him, and better friends to the human family 
than the faithless band who through money, red pot- 
tage, man-fear and public favor fell by the wayside. 



VIII 

THE UPPER ROOM AND TONGUES 

There are several features connected with the gather- 
ing and waiting of a certain company in the famous 
Upper Boom in Jerusalem some two thousand years 
ago, that is well worthy of study and imitation in these 
days of religious instability and false doctrine. 

One fact about them was that they were the most 
faithful followers that Christ had upon the earth. It 
was not a collection of sinners praying for pardon, but 
a band of disciples supplicating for the Baptism with 
the Holy Ghost. 

It must be evident to any one who has even a slight 
knowledge of unregenerate human nature, that it would 
be impossible to get one hundred and twenty uncon- 
verted people to be in a continuous prayer meeting of 
ten days. Even if penned up in such a room, they could 
not be kept in. They would break through the windows, 
or tear down the ceiling or dig through the floor before 
they would endure the spiritual torment of such a place 
and service. 

But what sinners would not do, and could not be 
78 



UPPER ROOM AND TONGUES 79 

compelled to endure, regenerated souls with the love of 
God, and hungering for the fullness of salvation, could 
easily and naturally be seen doing. This single fact 
alone is sufficient to reveal the character and spiritual 
status of the Upper Eoom Assembly prior to the morn- 
ing of Pentecost. 

A second fact is that they were gathered at this time 
for one object. The Scripture states that they were told 
to tarry, and did tarry for the Baptism with the Holy 
Ghost. 

This remarkable lack of division as to other points 
of doctrine and experience; this wonderful unity and 
agreement as to the one crowning work of grace which 
Christ had told them about, reveals one of the reasons 
for the amazing, overwhelming descent of the Holy 
Spirit upon them. 

We do not doubt a single instant that if God's people 
in church, camp ground and revival service, would leave 
out of their "programs" everything but this; if they 
would quit trying to cover all creation with their multi- 
plied diversified services and meetings; if they would 
give Missions, Missionaries, Education, Church Exten- 
sion, Colleges, Introduction and Showing Off of Promi- 
nent Men, and even Testimony Meetings, a rest for a 
while, and put the ten days in with a continuous, fer- 
vent, humble, importunate waiting on God for the Bap- 



80 A BOX OF TREASURE 

tism and outpouring of the Holy Ghost on the church 
and camp, we would have scenes rivaling Pentecost 
and results that would bring millions of souls to God, 
and send shocks of consternation and horror to the very 
center of the black heart of Hell. 

A third fact about this marvellous meeting of other 
days, was that up to the time the Spirit fell on the 
tenth day, not a single effort had been made to get a 
sinner into the meeting, or anything done to secure the 
salvation of any one of the many lost souls in Jerusalem. 

Multitudes of unsaved men were on the streets of that 
city, but not one of the number was invited or brought 
to the meeting in the Upper Eoom. As we see spiritual 
things to-day, we recognize plainly that had this been 
done, and a mixed crowd gathered, Pentecost would not 
and could not have occurred. It required the unity and 
fixedness of purpose, and the patient, humWe waiting in 
prayer of the best regenerated people in all that coun- 
try, to make possible the marvellous happenings of 
Pentecost and the days which followed. 

All this sounds wonderfully in harmony with Christ's 
prayer in the seventeenth chapter of John, where He 
declares that He prayed not for the world, but for them 
whom the Father had given Him out of the world. 
That they were now not of the world. And He prayed 
that they might be sanctified. And He wanted them 



UPPER ROOM AND TONGUES 81 

sanctified, that the nations might believe and know what 
God had done for the world through His Son. 

Everywhere we hear preachers and laymen, who have 
not studied out the divine way to a real, sweeping re- 
vival where hundreds and thousands of souls would be 
eaved, insisting that we preach to sinners. They think 
that we do not care for the salvation of the unconverted 
unless we do as they say; and yet their method is not 
the true, effective Bible way of bringing souls to God. 

The proper study of the ten days in the Upper Room, 
and of the Saviour's Prayer, shows that if the popula- 
tion in the streets, and if the world itself is to be saved, 
it will have to be through a wholly sanctified and fire- 
baptized church. 

A fourth fact about this company in the Upper Room 
was that they did not pray for a gift of the Holy Spirit, 
but for the Holy Ghost Himself, who is greater than all 
his gifts. 

It was the culminating blessing, the crowning work 
of divine grace, that was to usher in and finish most 
gloriously and triumphantly the Dispensation of the 
Holy Ghost, which they sought, plead for and obtained. 

Inspiration had declared that He, the Holy Ghost, 
was for all believers who met the conditions of His com- 
ing, but that His gifts were distributed as God saw fit 



82 A BOX OF TREASURE 

in His sovereign pleasure and infinite wisdom, to one 
this, and to another that. 

Again, the Scripture declares that the gifts are vari- 
able and not perpetual, but that the Spirit Himself 
would come to abide forever. 

In view of these statements of God, we see the Upper 
Room company showing true wisdom in seeking that 
which was culminating, crowning, superior and abiding ; 
and in making no effort for that which was lees, which 
not every child of God can have, and that even when 
possessed will in time "vanish away." 

It is true thait they obtained the Gift of Tongues that 
morning, but it is most noticeable that they did not 
seek the "gift." It was thrown in that day. Nor is 
there any account that this company ever had it again. 
It departed as a certain exigency and need passed 
away. While the Holy Ghost who had filled them, 
abided in them continually and to the end of their joy- 
ous, useful, powerful lives. 

Hence it is that when we hear to-day of God's people 
seeking for the Gift of Tongues, we behold a perfect 
contrast to the spirit, conduct and object of the One 
Hundred and Twenty in the Upper Room. We also see 
people confessedly sanctified seeking something that God 
has placed far below Sanctification or the Baptism with 
the Holy Ghost. We mark them striving for that which 



UPPER ROOM AND TONGUES 83 

is ranked as low down as seventh in the gifts of the 
Spirit, and one also that Paul emphatically declares 
"vanishes away/* while Holiness or Perfect Love, which 
comes with the Baptism with the Holy Ghost, he affirms 
is never to pass away. 

Nor is this all. Even if we had the real Gift of 
Tongues in our midst, and it is certain that we have 
not, the same God-inspired man said, ^^I had rather 
speak five words with my understanding, that I might 
teach others also, than ten thousand words in an (un- 
known) tongue." (The word in brackets is not in the 
original.) 

Still again, this wonderful mouthpiece of God said, 
that even where the genuine Gift of Tongues should be 
possessed, that such a gift should not be exercised un- 
less there was an Interpreter present. Hear his words, 
"If there be no interpreter, let him keep silence.'^ 

People claiming this gift to-day are quick to quote 
the Apostle, "Forbid not to speak with tongues." But 
behold here is another "forbid," which they have over- 
looked. If no interpreter is present, "Keep silence," 
Paul says. 

Moreover, there was all this care when the genuine 
gift was present! What shall be said of the "Gibber- 
ish" that is called Tongues to-day? 

It would be well for the people iirho have discounted 



84 A BOX OF TREASURE 

the Baptism with the Holy Ghost, and put a gift above 
the Giver, to remember several things: 

First, that the word "unknown," which they quote so 
much, is not God's word. It is a human interpola- 
tion and not the Scripture. 

Second, that the "tongues" with which the disciples 
Bpoke at Pentecost were not "unknown" tongues or 
"Gibberish." Luke says, "That every man heard them 
speak in his own language." And again we read in the 
eighth verse of the second chapter of Acts, "How hear 
we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were 
born." . Here was no unintelligible jargon; but lan- 
guages of earth recognized distinctly by people coming 
from these different countries and nations. 

Third, if the Gift of Tongues is as they put it, higher 
in value and importance than the Blessing of Sanctifica- 
tion, or the Baptism -with the Holy Ghost, then should 
there be commensurate results in their meetings and 
labors when it is received. 

We notice that when the disciples were baptized with 
the Holy Ghost there was a great revival and many souls 
were saved. Where is the sweeping revival and sal- 
vation of men in what is called "The Tongue Move- 
ment" to-day? 

Fourth, it is noteworthy that the church in which the 
Gift of Tongues broke out in PauFs time, gave that 



UPPER ROOM AND TONGUES 85 

Apostle more trouble than all the other churches put 
together. He told them plainly that they were "carnal/^ 
He also said to them that jabbering together as they did, 
they not only did not edify anybody, but people hearing 
you, — "Will they not say that ye are mad V 

In view of all these things ; and in recognition of the 
fact that even after "coveting the best gifts" there re- 
mains a "more excellent way ;" the way of Holiness and 
Perfect Love all laid down in Christ's Prayer, and the 
thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, we propose not 
to run after a thing which is not even among the 'Hjest 
gifts ;" that God ranks as Number Seven in the list ; that 
unaccompanied with love Paul says is as sounding brass 
and a tinkling cymbal; and which, according to the 
Bible, is certain at last to "cease" and "vanish away." 

We prefer the Baptism with the Holy Ghost, purify- 
ing the heart, filling with Perfect Love and enduing the 
soul with power. And in the strength and grace of this 
crowning culminating work of God, would "rather speak 
five words with the understanding, than ten thousand 
words in an unknown tongue." 



IX 



LEAVING THE FIRST PRINCIPLES 

In the middle of the first century, Paul wrote to a 
church, and through it to all Christian churches, to 
leave first principles and go on to perfection. 

He did not say "grow" to perfection, but "go." He 
did not say "towards perfection," which would mean a 
kind of approximation or camping in the neighborhood, 
but the command was to "go on TO perfection." Here 
was an arrival; a getting somewhere; in other words, a 
definite experience. 

Dr. Adam Clark says that a better translation is 'Tjet 
us be borne on immediately into perfection." 

The first among the "principles" that the apo&tle men- 
tioned was repentance. His idea was not to destroy a 
cardinal doctrine or an essential experience of the heart 
and mind in coming to God, but leaving repentance as 
something not to be done over again, we should sweep on 
to an establishing grace called holiness, or perfection, 
wherein the affections, will, and the whole life would be 
BO bound to God that repentance in the old passed away 
Bense would not be needed. 

86 



LEAVING FIRST PRINCIPLES 87 

We were to leave it as the boy at school quits the 
alphabet for higher literature; and the multiplication 
table for advanced mathematics. Neither letters nor 
figures are despised or set aside, but they were simply 
means to a higher end, and having learned them as an 
opening lesson, a principle of knowledge, the boy now 
goes on to the culminating and crowning study and 
mental possession in logic and trigonometry. 

To see a school boy in the alphabet, and stalled in the 
multiplication table for years, would indicate beyond 
all doubt that the lad was a mental weakling or idiot. 

Physicians pronounce such instances to be cases of 
^'arrested development." It is always a melancholy ob- 
ject, and we find ourselves wondering as we see the out- 
ward physical shape all right, what could have happened 
to the mental mechanism within, that has led to this 
clogging of the wheels and permanent halt of the in- 
tellectual life before us. There he is in the alphabet, 
and laboring on the first division of the multiplication 
table, with no sign whatever of advancement. He has 
stopped at the first principles. 

We have known boys who were not idiots, and yet 
could not get out of the preparatory or freshman classes 
at college. We knew a preacher who was five or six years 
on the first year's course of study in theology in the 
itinerancy of the M. E. Church South. The report was 



88 A BOX OF TREASUKE 

that he would not study, he would not go on; in other 
words, he camped, in a scholastic sense, by the first 
principles. 

Paul, in the first century, was trying to get a body oi 
believers away from the primer and first reader of re- 
pentance to a salvation that needed not to be repented 
of, and that would deliver them from the up and down 
life and zig-zag course of a mere beginner ; and yet here, 
lo and behold, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine 
hundred and ten, nearly two thousand years later, the 
great body of the preachers and members of the Christian 
church have their eyes fijsed on what Paul regarded as 
first principles, and insist on going back to Repentance. 

Doubtless many of them do need repentance for the 
way they have treated "perfection," or holiness, and we 
question not there is a demand for godly sorrow on other 
lines, among the clergy and laity; but the point we are 
making is the wonder that after twenty centuries, multi- 
plied thousands of Christian churches will not listen to 
the doctrine of holiness, but insist on having a preaching 
that properly belongs to the unillumined, unsaved and 
lost classes of humanity. 

In arranging for meetings, in calling evangelists, the 
condition exacted more and more is that holiness shall 
not be preached, but repentance instead shall be pre- 
sented. The church ignores the Divine command 



LEAVING FIEST PRINCIPLES 89 

to press on to the highest experience of the Chris- 
tian life, and would return to the lower plane, 
uncertain light and gloomy camping place of a sinner 
getting ready to be saved. 

The proof of what we say is in the character of the 
evangelist and the subject matter of his discourse ad- 
mitted into our large churches in the cities and towns 
of the land. He has to leave Perfection and go to Re- 
pentance, reversing Paul's command, in order to get 
his call to and permission to stay through the meeting. 

Some of them insist that they do preach holiness at 
certain times in these services, but it is noticeable that 
no one gets the blessing under them, and it is presented 
as a doctrine in such a vague way, so often confounded 
with growth, and there is such an utter dropping out of 
the definite seeking for the blessing and dying out at 
the altar, that no one needs to wonder that the people 
do not obtain the pearl of great price, the experience of 
entire sanctification. 

Even at conferences and at some so-called holiness 
camp grounds, the brother who leads the camp meeting, 
or conducts the Pentecostal services, as they term it, 
must be famous, not for going to the bottom and top of 
the subject, but be well known for his careful avoidance 
of the life and death issue, and if handled at all, yet so 
delicately, carefully and ambiguously, that ^"^everybody" 



90 A BOX OF TREASURE 

will be pleased with the cautious speaker, who fails to 
put the audience under conviction and was never known 
to lead a soul into the genuine, unquestionable experi- 
ence of entire sanctification. 

One of these brethren told us once that he preached 
the doctrine and experience "with exceeding wisdom/' 
He repeated the three words three times, laying great 
stress on the two concluding ones, "exceeding wisdom." 

We asked him if any one ever obtained the blessing 
under this style of preaching. With decided embarrass- 
ment he replied: "No." We rejoined that we did not 
preach with "exceeding wisdom," for we did not possess 
that mental endowment, but with a full and overflowing 
heart we tried to make plain "the whole counsel of God," 
about this work of sanctifying grace, and had beheld 
thousands obtain the "blessing." Our style may not have 
pleased certain boards and committees, but it certainly 
had the indorsement of heaven and the constant approv- 
ing smile and presence of God. 

According to the divine plan laid down in the Bible, 
judgment must begin at the house of God; Zion must 
shine and burn, and then nations will flock to the light 
of her burning; the work must begin at Jerusalem and 
in the Upper Room with Christ's own disciples. The 
church must obtain "perfection," and the world will 
sweep into "repentance." The people of God must re- 



LEAVING FIRST PRINCIPLES 91 

ceive the Baptism with the Holy Ghost, which "purifies" 
as well as "endues with power," and although only one 
hundred and twenty in number they will so awe, move, 
convict and reprove the world of sin when the Spirit 
comes to them, that three thousand sinners will be con- 
verted in the streets one day, five thousand the next, and 
after that daily such as shall be saved. 

It makes the heart sad to see the time of the world's 
salvation hindered and postponed by this mistake of the 
people. The world will never be taken for God by a 
church needing repentance, but by one filled with the 
Holy Ghost. So said the prophets; and so said Christ. 
In the prayer of the Saviour in the seventeenth chapter 
of John, He pleads for the sanctification of His disciples 
then and of those to follow thereafter, that the world 
might ^T)elieve" and "know" His great salvation, while 
in the sixteenth chapter of the same book the Lord dis- 
tinctly states that the world would be reproved of sin 
after He had sent the Spirit upon them. His own dis- 
ciples. 

Somehow the Adversary has got the church to reverse 
God's plan, and instead of leaving the first principles 
and going on to Perfection, they have ignored perfec- 
tion, or holiness, and gone back to repentance. The 
congregations all over the land are kept in the alphabet 
until the great majority of the membership are but 



92 A BOX OF TREASUKE 

spiritual weaklings, and the house of God filled with 
moral dwarfs, Vho were brought into this condition by 
a case of arrested development. 

Meantime the annual protracted meeting is held, and 
an evangelist secured with the full understanding that 
holiness as a work of grace, received instantaneously 
through consecration and faith in the blood of Christ, 
must not be preached, and only messages delivered that 
will bring a lot of half-awakened sinners into the church, 
and keep the church itself down in this same spiritual 
plane or condition, where these latest accessions dwell. 

What a blow that is to the church of Christ, in the 
revelation that they bask in the same lesser light and 
feed on the same weaker food that is given to the un- 
converted and the newly regenerated, or "babes in 
Christ." Think of it ! Members of the church con- 
verted ten, twenty and thirty years ago, turning from 
the "strong meat" that God wants them to have, and 
begging for the milk bottle of infants just bom into 
the Kingdom! 

Two questions we would ask here, that surely will be 
brought forth on the Final Day: 

First, to the churches of the land — Why do you insist 
that the evangelist and pastor reverse God's order of 
saving men, and silence them in the main commission 
given them? Are such people wise above God? Turn 



LEAVING FIRST PRINCIPLES 93 

to Ephes. 4:11-16, where we are told that Christ gave 
evangelists, pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the 
Baints ! (regenerated people) for the edifying of the body 
of Christ, for their solid establishment, and then ulti- 
mately as a result, ^'^the increase of the body.'' 

Again is their throttling of the pastor and evangelist 
a dread of the light that conies by the preaching of holi- 
ness, the cost of obtaining the blessing, the sacrifices to 
be made, the giving up of reputation, talent, time and 
self? 

How contemptible such a crowd will be at the Judg- 
ment, where it will appear that they clamored for a 
preaching to outsiders and sinners, to save themselves 
from messages of God that would have laid their own 
proud heads and bodies in the dust. 

A second question is to all those pastors and evange- 
lists who permit themselves to be cheated out of the 
highest results in works of grace by taking their orders 
from men, councils and sanhedrims instead of obeying 
God. Many do not, but some do. 

Why do they allow themselves to be gagged and choked 
off in this way? 

Is it fear of man? 

Is it desire for popularity? 

Is it dread of a real Gospel battle? 

Is it lust for position and appointment? 



94 A BOX OF TREASURE 

Is it love of money? 

What about this reversal of God's method? What 
about the divine commission of the evangelist and pastor, 
changed and regulated to please man? What about the 
starving flocks, the unfed sheep, the powerless congre- 
gations that fill the land, and sinners going to hell by 
the drove in the face of a church spiritually helpless and 
unable to save them? 

And, finally, what about the death bed, and the Day 
of Judgment to a being who had the light, who knew his 
duty to God and man in these things, yet would not 
doit? 

And behold ! the fallen, unjust steward said to the 
equally unfaithful tenants, "How much owest thou my 
Lord? So much? Well, sit down and write thirty for 
sixty, and fifty for one hundred, and especially write 
Repentance instead of Perfect Consecration and Full 
Salvation." 



X 



THE DELAY OF THE GOSPEL 



It seems very strange to some that after nearly twenty 
centuries Christianity has not yet taken the world for 
God. They reason that it is the truth ; has the power of 
an omnipotent being to enforce it on mind and con- 
science ; while the same infinite author possesses a multi- 
tude of physical agencies by which He could defend His 
own, and overwhelm His adversaries. And yet here, 
after nearly two thousand years have passed away, Chris- 
tianity is still struggling for victory, while hundreds of 
millions have never heard the name of Christ, and Mo- 
hammedanism, which sprang up centuries later, has more 
than doubled the numbers of our holy religion, and did 
it in several hundred years. 

The effect on many in the world, in view of these 
things, is to awaken doubt as to the genuineness of 
the Christion religion. While with many careless 
thinkers in the church itself, there is an equally dis- 
honoring unbelief or question as to the power of Chris- 
tianity through the Holy Ghost to win the battle and 
bring the world back to God. 

95 



96 A BOX OF TREASURE 

Over against this downright infidelity in and out of 
the church, we have the statement of the Bible of a final 
world-wide conquest. We have also a declaration con- 
cerning the Saviour's mind about the long-drawn out 
war, where the Scripture affirms that He will not faint 
nor be discouraged until victory is conclusive and eternal. 
Also the vivid portrayal of His perfect assurance as to 
the complete triumph of His cause, in the words that the 
Heavens receive Him until the restitution of all things, 
and that He has sat down on His throne in the Heavens, 
there to remain until all His enemies shall be made his 
footstool. 

These two verses alone would convince the thoughtful, 
well-balanced mind that Christianity is all right; that 
'^Christ has all power in Heaven and earth;" and that 
the Holy Ghost in the third and last dispensation is not 
and will not be defeated. 

The apparent slowness of the Christian religion to 
capture the world and redeem the race from sin and the 
power of the devil can be accounted for from a number 
of reasons. 

One cause is discernible in the character of the Gospel 
itself. 

Unlike the compromises of earthly religions ; different 
from the easy demands, as well as promises of a sensuous 
paradise made by the Koran of Moslemism; the Gospel 



DELAY OF THE GOSPEL 97 

strikes plainly at all and every sin, insists on the destruc- 
tion of every heart and life idol, the perfect cleansing 
of the soul, the complete submission of the will to God, 
and the being filled and led continually- by the Spirit 
of God. 

Cannot the most thoughtless see the difference on the 
multitude between the preaching of the Gospel over 
against the teaching of the Koran? The first insisting 
on the crucifixion and death of the carnal mind, and 
after that the proper subjugation of the life to God, 
v/hile the latter permits sin to remain in the present life 
and promises a fleshly enjoyment in a world to come. 
Who wonders that Christianity crept as to numbers while 
Mohammedanism bounded at once up into the five and 
six hundred million figures. 

The truth of tliis statement finds confirmation in our 
midst by contrasting the reports of evangelists who 
preach a superficial Gospel, with the account given of a 
meeting by men who went to the bottom of the sin 
question, showed the desperate wickedness of the heart, 
and demanded a perfect consecration of all to God, faith 
in the Blood alonC;, and a waiting and dying out at the 
altar until the Fire fell from Heaven, 

In these days it is rare for these latter named workers 
to count over forty or fifty souls who really get through 
in a ten days' meeting ; but when Bible terms are dropped 



98 A BOX OP TREASURE 

i)y some preachers, the sin question glanced at, the con- 
secration exacted only partial, while the tarrying at the 
altar scarcely exceeds ten minutes, and men full of 
inbred sin are called on to pray for such seekers — ^who 
wonders that the numbers sent out from the battlefield 
(battlefield!) sweep easily from two to five hundred? 

It is the character of the true Gospel to offend. To 
substitute it with a vitiated, emasculated, eviscerated, 
attenuated Religion, is to have crowded houses, hundreds 
joining something, hundreds standing in the aisle, hun- 
dreds not able to get in, while the "oldest inhabitant" 
(who is both blind and deaf) says he has never seen nor 
heard for years anything to equal that same meeting. 

The same principle and rule applied to the nations 
shows the difference between Christianity and Moslem- 
ism as to numbers. 

A second explanation of the apparent slowness of 
Gospel progress is to be found in the freedom of man's 
moral nature. 

There can be no compulsion in the matter of a human 
being's salvation. He is to be reasoned with, entreated, 
conscience appealed to, but cannot be coerced. Physical 
forces cannot and do not reach the case. A person 
may be compelled to an outward submission by muscular 
force, while the heart and soul is in complete rebellion 



DELAY OF THE GOSPEL 99 

to the so-called subduer. God wants no such sacrifice 
and service as this. It must be free and voluntary. 

The Saviour does not propose to win the nations to 
His side by the use of a Mahomet's sword, or as Spain 
converted Mexico and Peru with the spear, arrow and 
gun. He has no idea of corralling or herding the race 
into Heaven by a mere physical omnipotence. Heaven 
is a condition as well as locality, and men must be 
changed to its likeness of spirit and character, or it 
would be torment to those who are dragged or otherwise 
forced in. 

The fact is that the nature of man, and the character 
of the conflict going on, utterly forbids the use of ma- 
terial force to obtain victory for the truth. 

So when men marvel at the slow advance of a religion 
they know to be true and divine, and say God is omnip- 
otent, and ask why does He not end this long struggle 
against sin, the devil and an ungodly world by floods, 
pestilences, tempests of fire, earthquakes and cyclones, 
they speak as one of the foolish ones. The battle cannot 
be settled this way ; a moral nature cannot be changed by 
simple physical might. 

According to the papers, quite recently a wealthy 
gentleman who had been pursuing a runaway son over 
the country found him eating at a restaurant table in 
company with an actress. He took tlie yOung man of 



100 A BOX OF TREASURE 

twenty by the ear, he himself being a Jeffries in stature 
and strength, and led him out of the place to the depot 
close by, and, so to speak, policed him home. He might 
have added crime to his lack of humanity and true wis- 
dom, and killed his son ; but the point we make is that 
in either case there would have been no spiritual or 
moral change in the youth. 

If this would be the best method, God has no lack of 
dynamic forces by which we could be hurled out of the 
theater into a pew of the church, or caught by the neck 
and flung up towards Heaven. Yet just as the youth we 
have spoken about now doubtless hates the being who put 
public shame on him and will never rest until he leaves 
his home forever ; so the man physically dragged from an 
opera box to a church seat remains the same in nature, 
while if shot by a tremendous force of nature towards 
the skies, and even inside the gates of pearl, there would 
be another law and power at work which would pull him 
out and back and land him away down in the kind of 
world for which he was morally fitted. And it came to 
pass, said Luke, that Judas after his death went unto 
his own place. 

Such being the moral freedom of man, who needs to 
wonder that Christianity does not sweep immediately on 
to perfect victory over all the earth? 

The triumph of Christ is in the change of heart. 



DELAY OF THE GOSPEL IQl 

cleansing of soul, submission of the free will to God, and 
the holy life which follows. Evidently it is much easier 
to secure joiners to a church, get people to be baptised 
with water, to hold up their hands and say they want to 
meet their mother in Heaven, "desire a better experi- 
ence," etc., etc., than to obtain genuine followers of Jesus 
Christ, the Son of God. 

It is this freedom that He has to confront and deal 
with, and which causes the years to stretch out in the 
individual case, and the centuries to roll by in the strug- 
gle with the world, while victory in the complete sense 
still has not been obtained. 

A third reason for the seeming Gospel delay or fail- 
ure is found in the fact that the church has lost the 
Baptism with the Holy Ghost. 

Christ distinctly taught that His followers must have 
this blessing in order to carry victory everpvhere and 
bring the nations to God. Nothing could be more specific 
in His teachings than this, and so He "commanded" 
them that they should tarry in Jerusalem until this 
marvellous purifying and empowering grace should be 
obtained. After that He said you will be v/itnesses for 
Me unto the uttermost part of the earth. He did not tell 
them to take the blessing by faith and go; but to 
"TAREY" until they got it. 

When some of the disciples, with their eyes and 



102 A BOX or TREASURE 

thoughts fixed on the time that he should return, asked 
when that coming would be; great was the rebuke they 
received as He answered: 

^^It is not for you to know the times and seasons — but 
ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come 
upon you/^ 

In other words, the great essential thing was the 
Baptism with the Holy Ghost. That was to enable them 
to be witnesses for Him; that would sweep them to the 
uttermost part of the earth, while it also gave them vic- 
tory in Judea and Samaria ; and it was that which would 
bring the times and seasons all right, and the world itself 
back to God. 

Alas for it that the church as a whole has lost this 
conquering grace and irresistible blessing, which brought 
three thousand souls to God the first morning the dis- 
ciples obtained it. A blessing in the power of which 
they saw five thousand men saved the next day. And 
in the might and force of this great culminating, crown- 
ing work of grace Christianity swept to the ends of the 
earth and bade fair to bring universal victory to the Son 
of God in the first two centuries. 

But it was lost. And in the third century the church 
became so popular that an emperor joined it. Still later 
the devil applied for membership. And then the world 
got in! and the Holy Dove took flight into the skies. 



DELAY OF THE GOSPEL ' 103 

Would that the faithful who are left to-day would 
forget sinners for a while^ as did the one hundred and 
twenty, and pull away from the sluggard stay--at-home 
*Hhree hundred and eighty" and go at once to the Upper 
Boom. And there Tarry! until the fire fell and they 
would all be filled with the Holy Ghost. 

Then would come times and seasons indeed! The 
glory would pour out of the Upper Room ! The streets 
would be filled with converts ! And then we would be- 
gin to see the nations turn to God and His Christ, the 
multitudes would flock to the church as doves to the 
windows, and the vision of Ezekiel in regard to the Holy 
Waters would be fulfilled in the sight of a world sub- 
merged with the knowledge and grace of the Lord as the 
waters cover the sea. 



XI 



THE JUXGLE IN THE HEART 



The seventeen manifestations of the carnal mind or 
inbred sin given by Paul in one of his epistles is cer- 
tainly startling and alarming. But when we see clearly 
traced in scripture the outlines of various forms of ani- 
mal life projected in character by the same principle of 
evil, and find these ghastly portraitures or pictures 
reproduced to-day in men and women around us, the 
sensation of surprise turns into an emotion of horror. 

The thought that "the body of sin" within us can take 
upon itself the appearance, spirit and action of a certain 
forest animal is fearful enough, but when we discover 
that the carnal mind is a kind of complex nature and 
can assume in succession a multiplicity of animal forms 
and characteristics, the revelation is simply overwhelm- 
ing to the mind and heart sickening beyond words to 
express. 

If carnality in each unregenerate and regenerate heart 
in a church or neighborhood took but one semblance and 
wrong spirit, even that would make every congregation 
to possess a menagerie ; but to see it taught in the V/ord 
of God^ and proved in life that there is a deep swarming 

104 



JUNGLE m THE HEART 105 

infested jungle in each individual breast is the thought 
that is full of such unutterable horror to every spiritually 
illumined mind. 

We do not doubt but that if each honest inquirer after 
truth would keep a faithful diary of his moods and con- 
duct he would find that in the course of a single year that 
everything which creepeth, crawleth, stingeth, hisseth, 
biteth, crusheth and killeth in the jungle of India has 
had its moment, hour or day in his ov/n heart. 

The Jungle is a quiet, peaceful looking piece of dense 
woodland to the outside observer; but in those same 
shadowy recesses, and under the tangled vines and inter- 
twisted boughs, and all through its brakes and sloughs 
there is a multiplicity and fearfulness of moving forms 
that completely belie the outv/ard appearance of peace 
and safety. 

It is certainly one tiling to look at the outside of a 
man's life, to observe the immaculate dress, gracious de- 
meanor, carefully studied language and modulated tones 
of voice; and a totally different affair to get a sudden 
insight into the thought life, heart realm, and real his- 
tory of the individual. 

The man in the pulpit, on the platform, in the office, 
on the street, is one sight; but the same person at home 
or far away from home, and from all who Imow him, m.ay 
be a spectacle as different as it is possible for language 



106 A BOX OF TEEASUEE 

to describe, and revealing such Jungle features as would 
remain an astounding memory forever. 

Think of an arm that once protected becoming a boa- 
constrictor to crush. Of a tongue that formerl}^ cooed 
like a dove, darting out like the poison prongs from the 
red throat of a rattlesnake, to injure and destroy. Of a 
face that an hour or day before beamed with kindness, 
suddenly taking on the frightful features and expression 
of an infuriated hyena or tiger. These instances are but 
the faintest hints of what is going on in, and coming out 
of, the Jungle of the human heart. 

The panther has a cry like a little baby; the serpent 
has a soft sibilant sound like a quick sigh ; the anaconda 
covers its victim with a froth from its own mouth be- 
fore swallowing it alive; the boa-constrictor enfolds 
quietly with fleshy coils and then gradually strangles and 
kills; the vampire sucks away the life-blood, after first 
having fanned its prey to sleep. So even in the Jungle 
denizens there is an attractive, bewildering or false out- 
side which covers an opposite nature underneath. 

Truly we do not have to live long or go far before we 
hear the serpent's sibilant whisper in the social circle, 
note the vampire wing, mark the mouth froth and feel 
the enveloping coils of a human Python who would crush 
heart, body and soul alike. 

Holmes, the murderer of over thirty people, had a 



JUNGLE IN THE HEART 107 

most ingratiating manner. Nearly all who met him were 
charmed with his conversation and deportment. The 
young man who killed two young women in a church in 
San Francisco, was so outwardly well bred and alto- 
gether pleasing in his ways, that he was not only a great 
social favorite, but had been elected assistant superin- 
tendent of the Sunday school. What vampire wings, 
serpent whispers and panther baby cries these men 
had! 

There are animals of the feline order in the world, 
soft, sinuous, purring and apparently grateful for every 
gentle rubbing and smoothing received, which are sud- 
denly transformed by a single adverse stroke of the 
patter and petter, into a raging, eye-blazing, claw-scratch- 
ing singe cat. 

A judge of the Supreme Court in Pennsylvania said 
recently in the trial of a case before him that "all women 
were cats." But he would have spoken a deeper truth if 
he had said that every unsanctified human heart is an 
East India Jungle. 

Well may we wonder as we stand at the borders of 
such a life and say, what will be the next manifestation, 
the latest animal form which will come forth, show itself 
unmistakably and then retire into the deep, dark, un- 
known depths of the soul ? 

In a single day or week, a human being with this na- 



108 . A BOX or TREASURE 

ture can reveal the opossum, porcupine, ostrich, jackal, 
snake, vulture, bear and lion. We are kept in amaze- 
ment at the transformations of the person before us, and 
wonder what will be the following appearance. 

We have seen Inbred Sin when located inside an 
hungry body growl like a bear until dinner came on, 
next eat like a famished wolf, then gradually change 
into a meek contented looking sheep, and still later take 
upon itself the sportiveness and playfulness of a harm- 
less gazelle. 

But unfortunately the gazelle sipped too much wine 
in the follov/ing half hour, or some one crossed him in 
some way, whereupon the amiable antelope became first 
a hedge hog, then a wild boar, and then a glaring-eyed 
tiger, and the v/hole household trembled at this latest 
revelation of the Jungle. 

We have seen inbred sin cooing in a woman vvho 
was well dressed and had everything coming her v/ay to 
gratify and satisfy until v,'e thought that a dove with 
downiest feathers and most liquid of notes had strayed 
away from its companions, preferring her gentler nature, 
and was roosting som6v»4iere in her graceful body. Lator, 
suddenly vexed, first with her husband and then her son, 
we saw the straight bill turn instantaneously into a 
curved one, and the innocent pedal extremity of a Philo- 
mel become the sharp, hooked claw of the hawk. Still 



JUNGLE IN THE HEART 109 

later we ran unexpectedly on her in the hall where she 
was violently scolding a poor servant girl, and this time 
we looked upon a fierce eyed female tigress in trailing 
draperies circling about the frightened, pale faced young 
woman. The dove, nightingale, hawk and eagle had 
disappeared in the Jungle, and a panting, swollen fea- 
tured cougar had come forth and was now in the house 
wearing skirts. 

We never hold a meeting but in the prayer of con- 
victed people we hear confession of heart and life sins, 
some times a half dozen in number, that as to nature 
have their startling types in the bogs, brakes and tangled 
depths of the wilderness. 

We do not question but that every true examiner of 
carnality in the heart would discover so many things 
which correspond to what we read in Natural History as 
to creeping, clawing, squirming, stinging, scratching, 
biting, growling, roaring, tearing, rending, devouring 
qualities and performances, that he would never say again 
that he obtained a pure heart in regeneration, but would 
in horror and agony of mind begin to cry to God for 
deliverance. 

It would be well before death to explore this Jungle 
in the soul. Its revelations in that late and trying hour 
are often so fearful that hope sickens, faith is paralyzed 



110 A BOX OF TREASURE 

and the soul goes out in voiceless despair into the dark- 
ness of the World of the Lost. 

It would pay to investigate the Jungle at once. God 
has great axes of Truth to hew the way into the pro- 
found and tangled mazes of the heart. His Spirit, 
stronger than ten thousand arc lights; mightier in its 
radiance than our sun; than Vega, nine hundred times 
larger than our sun ; than Arcturus, three thousand times 
greater and brighter than our sun; can flood the mind 
with a light beyond all these, and reveal within us every 
glittering eye, gleaming tooth, dripping tongue, piercing 
fang, ripping claw, ponderous paw, crushing hoof and 
goring horn that ever has or ever will proceed from or 
belong to Sin. 

The same power which exposes, can also destroy. And 
He who shows the awfulness and peril of the Jungle can 
in a moment depopulate it of its inhabitants, transform 
it into a Garden of Eden, fill it with forms of peace, love 
and moral beauty, and delight the observer with as many 
manifestations of goodness in the same breast as once 
amazed and distressed him with appearances and actions 
of evil. 

We can but marvel that men seem to prefer an in- 
ward fellowship of wild animals and hating, raging devils 
to the presence of the heavenlies, the communion of the 



JUNGLE IN THE HEAKT 111 

Holy Ghost and the unbroken companionship of the Son 
of God. 

Would that we had more like the Man of Gadara who 
in wretchedness and despair at the torment, rending and 
tearing of evil spirits within him, cried out to Jesus, and 
accepted His great deliverance. The life picture of all 
such would be exactly like that of this Bible character. 
Devils cast out; Heaven within; clothed and in their 
right mind ; sitting at the feet of Jesus ; looking in love, 
gratitude and devotion into the face of the Son of God, 
and saying, "Behold wherever you go, I beseech Thee 
you. 



XII 



THE DEATH OF CONSCIENCE 



Conscience is that power or faculty of the soul^ by 
which we recognize and pronounce upon the moral char- 
acter of our words and deeds. 

This attribute lifts us above the animal world more 
remarkably than our immortality; for if consciensce 
should be disposed of or destroyed in some way in a 
human being, then he has become an immortal instead 
of a mortal brute. 

It is not to be denied that as a race we possess as 
purely a physical or animal nature, as the inhabitants of 
our barns, stables and farms^ "We eat, sleep and try to 
protect ourselves from the weather as they do. The 
scramble for food we see in some places, the noisy masti- 
cation and hurried gulping and swallowing by a long 
line of bowed heads is marvellously suggestive of scenes 
Yve have beheld in troughs and different kind of re- 
ceptacles located in styes and pens. We are certainly 
animal, no matter what else may be said of us. 

The moral nature with its voice the conscience, lifts 
us unspeakably above, the brute world to which we are so 

112 



DEATH OF CONSCIENCE 113 

closely allied in similarity of fleshly form and appetite, 
and reaches forth its hand and exercises its energies to 
touch and get in harmony with a spiritual life and the 
spiritual Universe above it. 

Its voice calling to duty, disapproving wrong, and con- 
demning sin within, shows there is a spirit and nature 
within us, distinct from the body and utterly unknown to 
the animal world about us. No domestic or wild animal 
has any conception or knowledge of right or wrong in the 
moral sense. They know of no such things as irreverence 
or Sabbath-breaking; while stealing, idolatry, false wit- 
nessing, and all other sins, are utterly beyond their com- 
prehension. 

This peculiar knowledge belongs to men and angels, 
necessitating a Day of Judgment for them because of this 
higher form of life, with its perception of good and evil, 
its volitions, its freedom of choice, its power to obey or 
disobey divine commandments, and its deeply ingrained 
sense of responsibility for conduct, and accountability to 
the Almighty Maker of Heaven and earth. 

The diflSculty of the higher nature on the inside with 
the lower nature on the outside can well be imagined and 
also remembered. If the visible material being without 
is a hog or dog or goat, the angel within is bound to have 
a hard time in making itself heard and in endeavoring to 
secure its rights. It is a long, bitter struggle indeed to 



114 A BOX OF TREASUBE 

persuade the spirit which the Creator put inside to yield 
to the domineering life of an animal on the outside; to 
accept the fleshy enswathement of muscle, bone and blood 
as the souFs true dress, and the domain of appetite to be 
the realm of a nature made in the image of God; to 
let the body monopolize and absorb, and pull down, 
until the man is dog from head to foot, hog up and 
down, or goat through and through. 

If human beings only possessed the animal natore, 
then they could live like such creatures and not have 
a pang of shame, regret or remorse. It is the moral 
nature that gives such trouble for awhile to men who 
would ignore the existence and presence of the soul, and 
strive to live as if they had only a body, with simply 
a superior intellect to animals at the other end of it. 

But the teaching of the Bible is that by a certain 
course of conduct, the conscience can be lulled to rest, 
put to sleep, seared as with a hot iron, choked into in- 
sensibility and completely slain or murdered so far as this 
present terrestrial life is concerned. 

What the Scripture declares about this fearful con- 
summation of the death of conscience is plainly revealed 
all around us in the lives of men. In both volumes, 
the sacred and human records of the fearful catastrophe, 
it is observable that it was not accomplished at once. 
But nevertheless it was finally done. 



DEATH OF CONSCIENCE 115 

There is a frightful awakening of conscience in Hell, 
as we see in the case of the "Rich Man" and evidenced 
by the torment of the lost. The undying worm and un- 
quenchable flame spoken of by Christ as the suffering 
of beings in the Pit is a figure of the revived conscience, 
eating at the heart, and burning its agony in the soul 
forever. It is there awake and alive for all eternity. 
But while this is the awful truth about the future of 
conscience in the Lost World, yet equally true is it that 
it can be utterly dead for months and years in the present 
existence, and preceding the dissolution of soul and body. 

In the remarkable spectacle of Joseph's brethren 
quietly eating after having thrust their brother into a 
pit where they had left him to die a lingering death by 
starvation, we behold such a case of moral callousness and 
hardness as almost to challenge belief and cause one to 
doubt the evidence of his own senses. Here they were 
breaking bread while a brother who had just begged 
piteously for mercy, was nearby doomed to a horrible 
death by their own counsel and hands. It looked like the 
bread would have appeared stained with blood, and have 
choked them. And verily it would have done so to any 
but the spiritually petrified and devilized. 

Another instance we see in the case of Judas who 
could quietly sit at the table, endure the eyes of Christ 
fixed upon him, receive a sop from his hands, eat it. 



116 A BOX OF TREASURE 

and then go out and betray Him to His enemies for a 
handful of silver. 

Still another exhibition of the dead conscience is be- 
held in the action of the Pharisees, Scribes and Elders 
in bringing about the mock trial, false witnessing and 
actual murder of the Son of God. 

And still another manifestation is held up in the 
Bible, in the case of the woman who had committed a 
gross crime, and then wiping her mouth asked, what 
evil have I done? 

The days of the Inquisition could furnish libraries in 
description of what occurred in that period in the name 
of Conscience, when the very moral faculty referred 
to and invoked was dead. Men who could behold un- 
moved a fellow creature die slowly before their eyes on a 
Eack which cracked and broke his bones, and tore 
muscle and sinew out of place; who could pitilessly 
mark the thrusting of red hot irons into the bowels of 
men and hear with greedy ears their frightful screams ; 
such beholders and listeners were no longer men, but 
through the utter death of conscience had become a 
horrible compound of animal and devil. 

The dead conscience is seen to-day not only in prac- 
ticed political and financial villainy, but in willful per- 
sistent wrong-doing in the family and church, in 
habitual falsifying and slander, the steady breaking of 



DEATH OF CONSCIENCE 117 

the commandments of God, and all done without a 
single inward pang by day, or the loss of a moment's 
sleep by night. 

Such people can deny the words, the power and the 
Blood of Christ, and yet eat at the Lord's Table. 
They can, like Joseph's brethren, wound and stab a 
brother with their slanderous tongues, and then after 
that take up bread in their blood-stained hands and eat 
heartily. They can commit the grossest social crimes 
and then wipe their mouths and say, why what have I 
done? 

Myriads of church members break the Sabbath con- 
stantly not only without scruple, but without thought! 

Doctors and patients regularly and systematically 
murder unborn ojffspring, then sit down to eat, and 
wiping their mouths say in reply to horrified question- 
ers, why what evil have I done ? And yet what a taste of 
blood all such bread ought to have in view of the Heaven 
denounced crime which they have committed. 

Still the horror grows as we see great numbers of 
those who were once in the light and experiences of 
Christianity, now sitting far back in the church in the 
midst of sinners, with faces like stone, their souls ani- 
malized and devilized, while hearing unmoved the deep- 
est, mightiest and most burning messages from God in 
the pulpit. They often smile and whisper during the 



118 A BOX OF TREASURE 

delivery of just such divinely anointed sermons, and 
hardly get out of the church or tent, before they are 
deeply engrossed in conversation about dress, fashion, 
business or pleasure. 

One might as well speak to a corpse, as preach to 
such a person, so far as spiritual sensibility of heart and 
life response is concerned. Indeed, God calls all gather- 
ings of such individuals, "The Congregation of the 
Dead.'^ 

Some one was telling the writer years ago of a ser- 
mon he heard Sam Jones preach in the "eighties" on a 
camp ground located in a dense woodland in the State 
of Mississippi. He said it was a discourse on Sin, and 
in it, toward the conclusion, the preacher spoke of the 
death of conscience. As he proceeded in the heart sick- 
ening description, the camp fires slowly going down, 
the woods full of dark shadows, the silence so profound 
that the rustle of a falling leaf could be heard, the peo- 
ple became conscious of the faint chirping of a solitary 
cricket some little distance away in the neighboring 
depths of the forest. 

The lonely, pathetic note was a kind of symbolism of 
the voice of conscience, and as it srt last sank into 
silence, that also was so like the portrayal going on of 
the gradual dying and final death of conscience, that a 



DEATH OF CONSCIENCE 119 

number of the observers of the incident were moved 
most profoundly. 

If that was melancholy, what is it to see going on 
unmistakably before us, the weakening, and ultimately 
the stillness of an utter death come upon the voice of 
an immortal soul? 

There can be no comfort in the thought that some 
of these consciences will arouse agonizingly in a last 
moment as did Judas, or that all will arise in torment 
never to sleep again, as was the case of Dives in Hell, 
and that such will be the experience of all the nations 
and multitudes who go down into the Bottomless Abyss. 
There is no hope or remedy for the lost soul in Perdition. 

Somehow we feel that the cry of conscience will be 
the sharper, and its agony all the greater when it 
awakens in Hell, after its long sleep and death-like trance 
on earth. 

Meantime godly parents, and devoted pastors and 
evangelists are trying to make themselves heard by 
their spiritually dead, families and congregations; and 
stretched on their faces in supplication are begging God 
to give them the word, the conversation, the prayer, the 
sermon, the cry ! that will penetrate the dull, cold ear 
before them and bid the sleeper wake and make the dead 
arise. 



XIII 

NEW WINE AND OLD BOTTLES 

In spite of the marvellous mental capacities of man, 
and of the wondrous discoveries and advancements the 
race has made in every line of knowledge; yet it is 
remarkable through what difficulties and oppositions, 
all these intellectual victories and onward marches to 
improvement had to come before reaching final success. 

Of course the great mass of mankind did not have 
these conceptions nor take part in the struggle to bring 
them to their birth and completion. There were pi- 
oneers of thought, just as there were explorers and 
openers-up of our country when it was a wilderness. 
The multitude in both instances stayed at home and 
furnished the criticizing, doubting and croaking. 

But even the leaders in certain lines of thought were 
dull enough when confronted with the teachings and 
discoveries of other realms and kingdoms concerning 
whose laws and phenomena they were themselves 
ignorant. 

Certainly it was with a deep and far-reaching mean- 
120 



NEW WINE AND OLD BOTTLES 121 

ing that the Saviour once spoke about new wine burst- 
ing old bottles. 

It seems that the new wine, even in the intellectual 
life, has a way of splitting and disrupting old mental 
receptacles and reservoirs. Men get accustomed to 
ways of thinking and doing, and do not want to be 
disturbed. So that a discovery which upsets ancient 
premises and conclusions, occasions a change of living, 
and ushers in the pain, worry and labor of novel situa- 
tions and fresh adaptations, is anything but pleasing 
and popular at first to them, if indeed it is ever ac- 
cepted. 

We have a ministerial friend who had been preaching 
several years to an unmoved congregation. Moreover, 
this church body had been in a like condition through 
a number of preceding pastorates. One morning this 
clerg}^man told his astonished audience that they had 
been occupying the same seats and pews for years, and, 
for that matter, were in the same physical attitudes. 
That he was confident that several hundred had heard 
the Gospel for the last twenty years through the left 
ear, while an equal number had received it through the 
right auricle. His earnest request now was that every- 
body in the house would change locations, and hear the 
truth from another angle, and listen to the Word from 
another part of the sanctuary. He felt confident, he 



122 A BOX OF TREASURE 

said,, that there would be immediate and great results. 
The idea was that people settle into habit ruts, and 
sink down in dry routines of life, into mental indolence 
and physical sluggishness, and become old bottles, and 
finally take a pride in being dried up, unyielding, un- 
adaptable, and generally petrified. 

Certain it is that the history of mankind confirms the 
words of Christ, who spoke of the bursting of old bot- 
tles under the working pressure of new wine. 

It is well known by every schoolboy how the new wine 
of Copernicus, when he said the earth moved and the 
sun was the center of the solar system, cracked and split 
the ecclesiastical and astronomical wiseacres of his day. 

The discovery of the circulation of the blood was met 
by a storm of ridicule in the medical world. It is 
equally well known what a testing, trying time steam 
had to go through before the world accepted it as the 
great friend and helper of the human family. 

It is said that when Fulton's little skeleton of a steam- 
boat went puffing and panting its way up the Hudson, 
it encountered a schooner coming down the river. When 
the sailors beheld this first of the steam kind with its 
black smoke and rattling noises, they thought it was the 
devil; and diving down into the hold of their vessel 
fell upon their knees and prayed the Lord for deliver- 
ance. 



NEW WINE AND OLD BOTTLES 123 

Then it is also related that a man with what is called 
a mathematical and scientific head, while admitting the 
feasibility of applying steam in many ways and direc- 
tions, was showing by a great array of figures on a 
piece of paper that no vessel could ever cross the ocean 
with such power, as no ship hold could contain the 
quantity of coal necessary for the voyage; when just as 
he had completed the demonstration, lo! there was a 
smoke on the horizon, and here came a steamer into 
port from all the way across the sea. Of course this 
meant another old bottle had blown up. 

The telegraph, the telephone, the air brake, and every 
other great and useful thing had a time of it in coming 
into recognition and use, because of the old bottles in 
the world. 

Descending even to lower planes, and smaller affairs, 
it is still the same. The first man who hoisted an um- 
brella over his head was nearly mobbed. While the 
use of suspenders for the upholding of pantaloons met 
with a storm of ridicule and denunciation. Many pul- 
pits were especially bitter, and accused every preacher 
who wore '^galluses," as being filled with pride, 
haughtiness and vain glory. 

In the ecclesiastical world, the melodeon or organ 
was the new wine that split the old bottle of the ''Tune 



124 A BOX OF TREASURE 

Lifter/' whose repertoire consisted of four or five hymns 
and the doxology. 

In the religious and spiritual realm, a genuine revival 
is certain to burst tne old bottles of formality and a 
lifeless ritualism. 

When Luther poured the new wine of justification 
by faith, into the old dried up ecclesiastics who preached 
salvation by works, there was a great rending of ancient 
ministerial skins and explosions of a hide-bound church- 
ianity. 

When Wesley emptied the new wine of sanctification 
by faith, on the old cut and dried Church of England 
and the ceremonialisms of his time and day, countless 
bottles of the ancient pattern blew up, while there was 
enough of salvation allowed to run to waste sufficient 
to have saved a thousand worlds 

To this day, the old bottles are in the way of a 
genuine Holy Ghost revival, and the reception of full 
salvation by the churches. As we have marked them 
before us ranged on the shelf, or more correctly speak- 
ing, sitting in the pews; the yellow skin, dead-looking 
eye, severe mouth, flinty brow, dry speech and cold, im- 
passive countenance, all declared the correctness and 
faithfulness of Christ's words in his use of the de- 
scriptive words. Old Bottles. 

The sweetness and power of God's great truths and 



NEW WINE AND OLD BOTTLES 125 

blessings are too much for them. So they explode, get 
mad, quit the meeting, abuse the preacher and evange- 
list, leave the church, raise a storm and go to pieces 
generally. 

We never yet held a revival meeting but from twenty 
to one hundred old bottles would burst as we tried to 
get the wine of a full salvation into them. 

We might well be discouraged, but we thank Grod in 
the same community there are always new bottles that 
can stand God's truth, and the whole truth at that, and 
want it poured into them. 

The N'ew Bottle stands for recently regenerated, and 
also those who by prayer, Bible reading, obedience to 
God and faithful living have kept their freshness and 
newness through years of dryness, while other converts 
and church members become hard, cold, and dry. 

There is a way of walking with God after the New 
Birth, where the follower of Christ remains a new bot- 
tle after the flight of years. He grows in grace, ad- 
vances in all the light he has, and only waits for fuller 
knowledge, to be cleansed from all sin and possess a holy 
heart. We find such Christians everywhere. And as 
Lydia's heart opened to the preaching of Paul, so their 
loyal souls turn readily, gladly, and thankfully to the 
proclamation of a Full Salvation, or Holinesss by faith 
in the Blood of Christ. 



126 A BOX OF TREASURE 

It is evident from Scripture as well as life itself, 
that the time for the reception of the wine of Sancti- 
fication is at a period close to that of justification and 
regeneration. It was only a few months after leaving 
Egypt that God's people were brought up to Kadesli 
Barnea, and Canaan was in full view. It seems to be 
the will of God that the wine of Holiness should be put 
into New Bottles. So Paul exhorts a church to forget 
the first principles and to go on to (be borne on imme- 
diately into) perfection. While those Heaven-taught 
men, Wesley and Asbury, urged upon their preachers 
that the young converts should be led at once into 
the experience of Holiness or Entire Sanctification. 
They dreaded and had but little confidence in the Old 
Bottles. 

And so does every one of reading, reflection, observa- 
tion and spiritual discernment. The Old Bottle is in 
the way of the world's progress ; and it also prevents the 
salvation of the nations. God buried nearly a million 
of them in the sands of Arabia. It had to be done to 
bring the New Bottles into Canaan. 

Alas, for the Old Bottles. They are everywhere. In 
the churches and colleges, in the pulpit and pew, in the 
Board of Stewards and the Ladies' Aid Society. 

And they are nothing but bottles. They have noth- 
ing in them but wind. If they were filled with old wine 



NEW WINE AND OLD BOTTLES 127 

it would be all right. But they have none of the old 
elixir, nor can they stand the new wine. Here and 
there they sit in lines and rows, dry looking, yellow 
skinned, with sucked-in sides, and having in them only 
a little hot air or nothing at all. 

To pour the wine-like truth of God into such people 
is to be rewarded in a few days with a series of loud- 
mouthed explosions and general blowing up. 

It is this ecclesiastical phenomena which causes the 
appearance in the church paper, or the utterance by the 
lip of various chief rulers in the synagogue, of that 
threadbare, well-worn, time-smoothed saying, that a 
certain evangelist, or a certain revival meeting, had split 
the congregation, offended and driven away some of the 
best people in the membership, torn everything to pieces 
and ruined the church forever. 

The real history of the case was, and it will so appear 
at the Day of Judgment, that Holiness was preached in 
a formal, worldly church, and as the wine of Full Salva- 
tion was poured out on the choir. Ladies' Aid Society, 
and Board of Stewards, some Old Bottles exploded ! 



XIV 



THE SHOUT AT JERICHO 



It is surprising how new light will come upon a pas- 
sage of Scripture by giving it a thoughtful, and fixed 
instead of a passing glance or attention. Not only 
have we discovered erroneous quotations by this method, 
but an actual opposite meaning to what had been con- 
ceived in the narrative of occurrence or statement of 
some truth or doctrine. 

Notably is this the case in reference to the famous 
shout given by the Israelites before the walls of Jericho. 
Every Bible reader's eye has fallen on the verse in 
Joshua, "And the people shouted with a great shout, 
that the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up 
into the city, every man straight before him, and they 
took the city.^^ Still oftener the words have been heard 
in prayer, testimony, exhortation, and sermon in refer- 
ence to the shout and the falling wall of Jericho, and 
not one in a hundred or thousand seems to take note of 
Beveral most essential facts of the history, viz., when the 
shout was raised, what it did not do, and what really 

128 



THE SHOUT AT JEKICHO 129 

knocked down the wall. Some most profound mistakes 
have been made concerning this notable matter. 

First, as to the time of the shout. 

The general mistake is that it was given at the very 
outset or beginning of the siege and conflict. And so 
we have repeatedly heard leaders of meetings say that 
the true way to do was to shout the walls down at once, 
and hence in accordance with their ideas instituted a 
general bawling and outcry which was not only hours 
but days ahead of time, and which not only did no good, 
and gained no victory, but really wrought harm and 
mischief in a variety of ways. 

The facts of the case in the Jericho shout were that 
it was given on the seventh day of the siege, and at the 
conclusion of the thirteenth march of the children of 
Israel around the entire walls of the city. Then with 
the blare of trumpets, the stentorian cry of the whole 
army filled the plain, echoed back from the sides of the 
mountains, and rent the very heavens. It ascended at 
the right moment, and was wonderful and powerful be- 
cause it came at the proper season, and in the fullness 
of time. 

There are many cries and shouts of God^s people to- 
day that fall powerless because they are out of human 
and divine order, and are hours, days and occasionally 
even weeks ahead of schedule. The word is given to 



130 A BOX OF TREASURE 

the thoughtless, "Shout the walls of Jericlio down!" 
and then a senseless and fleshly screaming and bawling 
are indulged in to the amusement of the world, the 
hardening of sinners, and the grief of the spiritually 
wise and good. 

Who has not marked the emptiness, deadness and 
darkness which seems to come upon a meeting after one 
of these premature charges, where the enthusiasm was 
man made and pumped up, and God had not given the 
command to shout and march forward. 

There are times and seasons in the kingdom of grace 
as well as in nature; and it is not without significance 
that the Word reads that when the Spirit fell on the 
disciples the day of Pentecost had "fully come." It is 
no use pushing the clock up to twelve when it is only 
nine. Our fooling with the hands on the dial does not 
change the course of time itself. After all, we have to 
sit down and wait until it is really noon, no matter how 
the hands point. There is a great disposition upon the 
part of certain hasty and uninstructed people to reach 
results without meeting conditions, to pull the melon 
before it is- ripe, to praise without praying beforehand, 
to secure a wonderful victory without doing a 
single thing. The whole proceeding is a grave mis- 
take and is clearly rebuked and contradicted by the 
natural and spiritual kingdoms of God. The rapture. 



THE SHOUT AT JEEICHO 131 

liberated tongues and resistless power of the disciples 
came after ten days of waiting humbly and continuously 
before God. The shout before Jericho, followed by the 
tumbling of its walls, was preceded by thirteen march- 
ings around the place, and seven days full of tests to 
faith and demands on the labor of the body. 

So when the command is given by some leader to his 
congregation to "Shout the walls of Jericho down,'^ it 
is well to ask what has been done preceding this noise 
that we are about to make, that is worth talking about, 
that God can use and bless, and that he has a right to 
expect and demand of us. This simple question when 
properly regarded and applied is calculated to open our 
eyes, and to explain some very fruitless and powerless 
meetings when there was a great deal of racket made. 

A second mistake made by some in regard to the shout 
given before Jericho is in regard to what it accom- 
plished. 

The general idea is that the united cry and volume 
of sound knocked the walls of the city flat. But ac- 
cording to the Bible it was not the shout at all that did 
it, but something entirely distinct and different. Paul 
tells us in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews and thir- 
teenth verse, "By FAITH the walls of Jericho fell 
down !" 

What a wonderful thing faith is, how it connects 



132 A BOX OF TREASURE 

soul and life with God and so in the strength and power 
of the Holy and Almighty One accomplishes the most 
amazing results. Inspiration speaks of it quenching 
the violence of fire, stopping the mouths of lions, put- 
ting armies to flight, and raising the dead. In the in- 
stance written about in this chapter it is seen flinging 
an entire city wall down in the dust; while John de- 
clares it can and does overcome the world. 

The devil is only too happy to get our eyes fixed on 
the realm of sense again, to be taken up with mere 
sound, to deify uproar, and go to worshipping the phys- 
ical in the sense of exalting and blindly following it 
into many foolish and hurtful performances. 

It is true that Faith may and does bring about noise, 
but noise does not produce faith. It is with significance 
that the apostle says that "bodily exercise profiteth 
little," and the prophet declares that 'It is not by 
might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord." 

Surely it is not our shouting that creates our faith 
but our faith that raises the shout, and knocks down 
the walls of opposition. 

We have known a number of meetings where the 
presence and power of the Holy Ghost was notably lack- 
ing, and where the service was "whooped up" by some 
manipulator to an appearance far beyond the reality. 
It was the sudden stimulation in a few moments, of a 



THE SHOUT AT JERICHO 133 

depleted spiritual system. It was an electric treat- 
ment, instead of the reception of health and life. And 
so there was a reaction and recoil that was most pain- 
fully felt by some, and perfectly apparent to all. 

We have known a wind and thunder storm to sud- 
denly come up on a warm day, promising rain and cool- 
ness, and after crashes from the clouds, and great vol- 
umes of dust blown in every direction, the whole hubbub 
ended without a drop of moisture, and followed by a 
dr}^, sultry and blistering heat that was w^orse than the 
former condition. 

We have seen this whole scene reproduced in many a 
meeting, and as we marked the absence of the Gospel 
dew and rain, the lack of real unction and holy power, 
we felt that not only souls were being grieved on earth, 
but God was wounded in Heaven. There had been 
much thundering on the human side, but no soul-re- 
freshing, life-renewing downpour of grace from the 
heavenly side. 

Inskip was accustomed to mighty scenes of grace in 
his meetings, and his great voice would often float like 
a banner over it all. But w^hen his quick ear would 
recognize that the flesh was getting ahead of the Spirit, 
that there was more thunder than lightning, more wind 
than rain, and more noise than grace and actual power, 
he would lift his hand, command attention, and bring 



134 A BOX or TREASURE 

the whole assembly into perfect silence, a solemn, holy 
stillness before God. He never lost, but always gained 
ground by this piece of spiritual generalship. It is 
certainly one thing for the leader of a meeting to tell a 
couple of hundred people to cry out "Hallelujah !" and 
a totally different thing when God bids them do it. It 
is the difference between perspiration and inspiration; 
between thunder and lightning; and between human 
noise and divine power. In the former case the shout 
is bigger than the faith, in the latter instance the faith 
is greater than the shout. 

In conclusion we say, that we must not give up the 
shout. God himself commanded it, but we must see 
that it comes in the right place. The praises and 
hallelujahs that are at a premium in heaven are not 
creatures of accident, but come as a result of spiritual 
condition, and right relations with God. They can point 
to a pedigree of faithfulness, to antecedents of grace, 
where such facts as obedience to God, abiding in the 
ranks, seven days of protracted effort, and thirteen 
consecutive marchings around, figure prominently and 
significantly. Then and there is born the true shout. 
But even here we must not forget, that it was not the 
shout, not the noise, not the marching around that won 
the battle, but Faith ! Faith ! Faith ! that brought down 
with a resounding crash on the plain, the whole en- 
circling wall of the city of Jericho. 



XV 



THE WISE MEN OF THE WEST 

There is much talk these days about Advanced 
Thought, and a New Theology. According to these 
latter day lights, all of us are tremendously in the dark 
who do not go with them in their new psychologies and 
religious creeds. According to some of these writers 
and speakers, the disciples and the Saviour Himself were 
much cramped and limited in their expressions and 
declarations of doctrine, while the Fathers of our 
Methodism were simply nowhere. 

A small sized clerical sprig on this wild vine of latter 
days, made a motion in an annual conference that John 
Wesley's Plain Account of Christian Perfection be re- 
moved from the course of study and reading for Meth- 
odist preachers, and a book written by a college presi- 
dent of Nebraska fame be substituted. 

A presiding elder told the writer that the old time 
way of defining depravity and remaining sin in the soul 
of the regenerated, as given by ,Wesley and Clarke was 
an offense to him. That it created a nausea, sense of 
repugnance, and instant rebellion both in mind and 

135 



136 A BOX OF TREASURE 

heart. We happily remembered as he spoke, that this is 
the invariable feeling of all in whom the Old Man still 
abides, and is most unmistakable confirmation of Bible 
statements, and proof of the carnal mind in the regen- 
erated as taught by the old time Wesleyan Theology. 

Before accepting this advanced thought with its new 
definitions, and this modem theology that puts the old 
with all its advocates to shame, we must insist on two 
things. 

First, that it turns out better, stronger, and holier 
followers of Christ, and, second, that it brings with it 
a corresponding increase of the power, favor, and 
approval of God. 

This is not an unreasonable or improper demand, as 
any candid reflecting mind must admit. God wants His 
creatures to have the pure and full truth, in that it 
"makes us free" and becomes a blessing in every way to 
the church and the world. So that if the N'ew Theology 
is of God, then we have a right to expect the Heavens 
to open and the Holy Ghost to fall on this kind of 
preaching and living as occurred on the Day of Pente- 
cost; and after that continuously on the lives and labors 
of such disciples. 

We do not refer here to the miracles attendant on 
some of those occasions, but to the unquestionable pres- 
ence, blessing, and power of God. 



WISE MEJ^ OF THE WEST 137 

Let the honest seeker after Truth compare the piety, 
spirituality, preaching, labors and fruit in salvation 
lines of the Wesleys, Fletcher and Clarke, with that of 
men to-day who are riddling the Bible, and tearing to 
pieces what is known as Methodist or Wesleyan The- 
ology, and the difierence or rather contrast is simply 
overwhelming. 

Then let him mark the spiritual lifelessness, the lack 
of unction, the notable absence of the Holy Ghost in the 
sermons, and services of these Latter Day Wise Men of 
the West, and he is compelled to feel another blow that 
is a regular knock down in its convincing power, that 
these teachers are altogether off, and gone as well. 

There may be a great lot of rhetoric, oratory, philoso- 
phy and '^science falsely so-called." But these Wise 
Men of the West as we have concluded to call them are 
not trying to find Jesus, but to get rid of Him; and 
their Star of Bethlehem is a will-o'-the-wisp from Massa- 
chusetts, or a Jack-o'-lantern from i^ebraska. 

An additional blow of conviction is received in mark- 
ing the liberty, power, unction, gladness, and marvellous 
spiritual results attending the ministry of those who 
preach a Bottomless Hell, a Topless Heaven, Total De- 
pravity, Eepentance, Eegeneration, Entire Sanctifica- 
tion as a second work of grace, and the other great truths 
and doctrines we find in the New Testament and faith- 



138 A BOX OF TREASURE 

fully incorporated in the Arminian-Wesleyan Theology 
of the Methodist church. 

We have yet to see or hear of a preacher getting 
happy and shouting in the pulpit, as he preached against 
these great facts and experiences laid down in the Word 
of God, and in the standards or writings of our Fathers. 
Nor have we ever heard of God granting a revival to 
any of these nineteenth and twentieth century slabbers 
of Divine Truth? They may have protracted meetings, 
a worked-up enthusiasm, and a number of accessions, 
but the supernatural is not beheld, and the Holy Spirit 
does not fall upon them and the people; there is no 
dreadful conviction for sin; and there is no tidal wave 
of salvation rolling upon sinners; and no sight of con- 
gregation and preacher with shining faces beholding the 
scene, full of joy and the Holy Ghost. 

If this New Theology and latter day way of present- 
ing the Bible is right and ahead of the disciples and the 
Wesleys, why does it not get foremost in salvation, and 
why does not Heaven open and pour itself out on such 
people and preaching! 

When we furthermore observe how the Spirit of God 
continues to honor men who preach the great doctrines 
we have mentioned, how conviction rests upon the con- 
gregation, how the altars are crowded with penitents 
and seekers, how souls leap with shining faces. and glad 



WISE MEN OF THE WEST 139 

cries and shouts into pardon and holiness, we cannot 
have and do not entertain a single doubt as to who has 
the Truth these days, who are in the divine order, and 
who are preaching the Word and declaring the whole 
counsel of God. 

Recently we were in a city holding a meeting on the 
old Gospel plan, while one of these Wise Men of the 
West, a pastor of a leading church, was at the same 
time preaching a series of sermons to his people. He 
at his end of the town, was belittling and slurring at 
the Bible. We, in another quarter of the community, 
were upholding and magnifying the Book. One evening 
he spent a whole hour ridiculing the history of the 
Deluge, the ark of Noah, and the fetory of Jonah. The 
game evening I exalted the sacred volume as much as he 
had slurred at and struck it ; and the different results at- 
tending the two services would have convinced the most 
Bkeptical as to who had the truth, and on whose side 
was the Lord. 

We were told that after the man of Higher Criti- 
cism was through with his assault on the Bible, not a 
soul was at the altar, not a tear was shed, not a sign of 
conviction or salvation was beheld, and not a single 
prayer even, was uttered. The assembly was dismissed 
from a service where God's Word had not been honored, 



140 A BOX OF TREASURE 

but dishonored; and where faith had not been strength- 
ened, but weakened and shaken to its center. 

That same night when we had exalted the Word of 
God (Deluge, Noah's Ark, the history of Jonah and 
all), we beheld deep conviction throughout the whole 
service, felt the presence and power of God every mo- 
ment, had the altar quickly filled with seekers for pardon 
and holiness, and after a regular storm of song, ex- 
hortation and prayer, we saw nearly twenty souls sweep 
with tears, shouts and happy laughter into the experience 
of justification and sanctification. 

Here was a difference indeed between the New and 
the Old Theology ; between thought that vf as ^^advanced" 
clear out of and away from the Bible, and thought 
that was content to keep in the Scripture and clothe 
the expression of truth in language used not only by 
men of old who spoke as they were moved by the Holy 
Ghost, but in words that fell from the lips of Divinity 
itself. 

A second Wise Man of the West, a great preacher and 
oflBcial in the Methodist Episcopal Church South, 
claimed to have received three distinct spiritual ex- 
periences, which he called Introductions to the Three 
Persons of the Trinity. He had first an introduction to 
the Son, subsequently one to the Fatlier, and still later 
one to the Holy Spirit. Being a gifted man, and pos- 



WISE MEN OF THE WEST 141 

sessing a royal imagination, he made these epochs of his 
soul marvellous indeed. The Holiness movement had 
not yet swept through the South, so quite a number of 
the ministry and laity felt humble indeed as they heard 
this great orator talking about three different blessings, 
when they had been glad to get one. They did not 
stop to reflect that our great pulpit declaimer must have 
been quite a stranger indeed to God, or had a way of 
running from and forgetting Him, inasmuch as he re- 
quired three introductions ! 

After this the Holiness movement began to sweep 
things in the South, and behold our great preacher was 
indignant over our claiming a second work of grace! 
Just where the propriety of his displeasure, and the con- 
sistency of his conduct came in we failed to see, for 
according to his own count, he was still ahead of the 
Holiness people one step or notch; for they had secured 
only two blessings and he claimed three. 

After this, our much introduced friend and fellow 
servant, became so stirred up and wrathful over the 
Full Salvation movement, and did so persecute those 
who claimed the experience of sanctification, that it 
speedily became apparent to all that he had received 
another and Fourth Introduction, and this time it was 
to the Devil ! 

A third Wise Man of the West, speaking before a 



142 A BOX OF TREASURE 

Methodist college in the North, took occasion in his 
Baccalaureate address to score the Bible teachings of 
Depravity, and yet he had sworn he would stand by the 
doctrines of his church. 

But he had "advanced" his thought and was now 
clear out of his own church standards as well as the 
Bible itself. Moreover in his Western wisdom he failed 
to see how he was pulling Eedemption, and the whole 
Christian edifice down about his ears with a complete 
destruction. For it must be evident to the thoughtful 
that if there is no depravity, then there is no need of 
regeneration and sanctification. The Blood is useless, 
the Atonement a farce, the Tragedy of the Cross a piece 
of empty acting, and all the calls to repentance, faith, 
consecration, and holiness, preposterous and absurd. In 
fact. Heaven itself is lost as a finality to this Incredo 
of New Theology. For if, convinced that there is no 
sin nature, a man fails to come by humble faith to the 
Saviour for the redemption and transformation that is 
alone in Him, then Heaven cannot be gained! The 
Bible plainly declares that without the divine super- 
natural birth of the Spirit, no man can enter the King- 
dom of God. And without holiness no man shall see 
the Lord. 

Here is wisdom indeed that saws the limb off be- 
tween the man and the tree, that throws a lighted candle 



WISE MEN OF THE WEST 143 

into the cellar stored with gunpowder, that pulls out 
the pillars and sleepers of the building in which one 
lives, and calls it Advanced Thought. Truly "if the 
foundations be destroyed" what will become of the super- 
structure of the Christian life? 

A fourth Wise Man of the West was lately laughing 
at the idea of depravity or inbred sin in children. The 
day before he had been attacking the doctrine of holiness 
in another quarter. He asked an old saint the question, 
"If both parents of a child are sanctified how can the 
child be born with inbred sin? How can you account 
for the badness of their offspring?" 

Evidently this philosopher of the west had forgotten 
his wisdom and argument of the preceding day, when he 
scoffed at a sin nature being in children. 

But the servant of God did not remind him of this 
inconsistency and contradiction, but simply replied, "If 
you express surprise at sin existing in the offspring 
of sanctified parents, how can you insist that the chil- 
dren of unconverted and unregenerated fathers and 
mothers are born pure and without sin" ! 

This is a specimen of the wisdom of the Wise Men 
of the West, and it is only a very little of what we could 
tell about these Latter Day Lights, who have come up to 
Boston and Chicago (not Jerusalem), riding on hobby 
horses (not camels) and bringing (not gold and frankin- 



144 A BOX OF TREASURE 

cense and myrrh), but tobacco. Free Masonry, old re- 
vamped heresies, a bloodless theosophy and a Christian 
Science falsely so called. 

We beg to be excused by our Advanced Thought 
brethren, but we prefer the Old Theology of the dis- 
ciples and the Wesleys, to the New Theology of men 
who never see a conversion, and never had a revival in 
their lives. We prefer the Bible and Wesley's Plain 
Account of Christian Perfection to the notorious an- 
tagonistic writings of certain men in Massachusetts, 
Nebraska and Alabama. We would rather go with the 
Wise Men of the East, who came to find and worship 
Jesus; than to follow the Wise Men of the West who 
have evidently, in their attacks on the Bible and Chris- 
tianity, given the infant Moses over to Pharaoh to nurse, 
and surrendered the child Jesus to Herod. 



XVI 

A PERFECT CONSECRATION 

We are confident that the explanation of much of 
the oifence ostensibly aroused over the doctrine and 
experience of entire sanctification, springs really from 
the announcement of the price necessary to be paid for 
its obtainment. 

A consecration that is confessedly defective, that allows 
certain mental reservations, is not fought by devils 
nor opposed or objected to by the church. It is the 
devotement of the whole man for all time that seems 
to arouse hell and earth. 

The adversary well knows that a partial or imperfect 
consecration will never bring the Baptism with the 
Holy Ghost upon the soul. So there are many revival 
meetings, so called, and consecration services so named 
that he has not the slightest uneasiness about. He 
knows what it costs to secure the goods, and that the 
price is not being paid at these popular gatherings, and 
so is not alarmed about the results of such meet- 
ings, smiles at the reports, and does not inaugurate an 
145 



146 A BOX OF TREASURE 

agency or movement to injure, retard or stop the largely 
attended, newspaper puffed, popular affair. 

The meeting that makes clear the price and way of 
obtaining holiness is one that disturbs, alarms and in- 
furiates the devil. This is the service or series of 
services that he causes his servants and instruments to 
belittle, abuse, misrepresent, oppose, and if possible to 
break up. He knows that where a perfect consecration 
is made, the fire will fall, men and women will be sanc- 
tified wholly and a body of divinely empowered people 
literally hurled upon him, will put him on the run, 
keep him on the run, and shake his old rotten 
kingdom to pieces about his ears. 

It strikes the writer that no man is justified in deny- 
ing the fact of such a blessing as holiness who has not 
met the conditions required for its obtainment. He is 
really in no place even to criticize. How can he say 
there are no such goods in the spiritual market, when 
he will not put the price on the counter. He is not 
only not allowed to handle the pearl of great price, 
but it is questionable whether a man sees the full beauty 
of the blessing until the whole cost has left his hands. 
It is the individual who is walking in the light, not 
standing, or worse still, backing out of the light, who 
gets the cleansing from "all sin" that John writes about. 

A perfect consecration is unspeakably ahead of the 



A PERFECT CONSECRATION 147 

Epworth League, Christian Endeavor consecration, which 
is made with heart and life reservations, rendered at 
every monthly and annual gathering, and leaves the soul 
at last hurt, hardened and deadened in some kind of 
way as to put it beyond the call and reach of Full 
Salvation. 

A perfect consecration puts its hand on every mo- 
ment of our time. It will not allow us to be devoted 
on the Sabbath and then careless, prayerless, un» 
spiritual and even worldly on the week days. Thia 
commitment will not permit us after going to the prayer 
meeting Wednesday night, to fraternize in a lodge with 
all sorts of unbelievers on Thursday night. 

There are men who seem to be completely the Lord's 
as Sunday school superintendents, but are just as plainly, 
worldly or business absorbed beings, all the other days 
of the week. Some persons belong to the Lord while in 
the church building, but in another tenement they 
are not his. That strange little creature called the 
Chameleon, which takes the color and hue of everything 
that it is resting upon, was made to give us a picture 
in a concrete shape of this variable brother. 

We heard the judgment once passed upon a preacher 
that when he was in the pulpit he should never come 
out of it, and when he was out of it, he never should 



148 A BOX OF TREASURE 

go back into it. Here was Bro. Chameleon again, the 
imperfectly or partially consecrated Christian. 

The perfectly consecrated man is God's man every- 
where and anywhere; any time and all the time. 

Secondly, a perfect consecration lays its hand upon 
the purse. 

We do not believe it is possible to obtain and retain 
the blessing of holiness without having an understand- 
ing with God in regard to our income and property. 

Very many regenerated people, and even church mem- 
bers, give one-tenth of their income to God. But a per- 
fect consecration goes deeper and farther than that and 
lays all material substance on the altar just as all time 
was given to God. 

This does not mean that a man literally sells out 
everything he has, or gives away all he owns, or turns 
his property over to a Dowie or one of Bowie's little imi- 
tators. This last proceeding would destroy the individ- 
ual stewardship which the Lord declares exists between 
each individual soul and himself. Every one must give 
an account for himself; not this man or that man for 
another; but each one must render an account of him- 
self and his stewardship to God. 

Perfect Consecration lays every dollar on the altar 
with the full recognition that all belongs to God. That 
it is imposible to give the Lord one-tenth and then 



A PERFECT CONSECRATION 149 

use the other nine-tenths in a way that Heaven cannot 
approve. In a high, holy sense all belongs to Christ 
and so must be used in a manner that He can smile 
upon and bless. Further still, that as everything be- 
longs to God, if he should call for it, then all would be 
given up to him. 

Third, a perfect consecration brings the entire body 
to the Lord. His own Word bids us to present it to 
himself a living sacrifice. 

The impossibility of the holy fire falling, and the 
Spirit of God filling one who kept back a single member, 
hand, foot, eye or tongue, is evident to any thinker. 
Not only is a part of the price withheld, but it is 
manifest that any faculty or power which we refuse to 
devote to God is certain to be the cause of our moral 
undoing. 

On the principle that the gate in Jerusalem which 
was not closed on the Sabbath brought a world of trouble 
to that city and finally captivity in Babylon; so the 
member we refuse to give to God will inevitably bring 
us into spiritual calamity. Job said he "made a cove- 
nant with his eye" — David did not. Willis Cooper 
failed to include his eyes and feet in his Epworth 
League consecration and was burned up in a theater in 
the city of Chicago. 

Perfect Consecration evidently presents the entire body 



150 A BOX OF TRjiASUEE 

a living sacrifice unto God, not only to spend and be 
spent in his service, but no matter what may be our 
walk, position and occupation in life, to live to his 
glory. 

Pourth, a perfect consecration means the yielding 
up to God, of the soul with its will, intellect, sensibilities 
and every one of its marvellous forces and powers. The 
fully dedicated body, indeed proves that the spirit is 
all right, for the soul goes along with its shrine or 
temple. But in the Bible we find the specific language, 
"My son, give me thy heart .^' The heart here stands 
for the soul, and God never calls a sinner a son. He is 
not a son by nature and can only become so by being 
born of the Spirit. The popular platform talk about 
the universal Fatherhood of God is simple rot. Christ 
himself said of a certain body of people, "Ye are of 
your father the devil." 

So it is the child of God who is asked to present 
his body a living sacrifice, and to give his heart in all 
its fullness and completeness to God. 

Finally a perfect consecration means the giving up 
of every tie and interest for the obtainment of Christ 
in the purifying, abiding, satisfying sense taught in 
the Bible. The Saviour said unless we left father, 
mother, lands, brethren and all for his sake, we were not 
worthy of him. 



A PERFECT CONSECRATION 151 

He said "worthy of me." He did not eay worthy of 
pardon, for pardon is not secured that way. The condi- 
tion of salvation is repentance and faith, with not a 
word about consecration, for a sinner cannot consecrate. 

When the Saviour was speaking of one's leaving all 
for his sake he was using the language of consecration, 
and laying down the price or condition of obtaining 
him as the perpetual indweller, a privilege which comes 
only with the blessing of entire sanctification. 

Let the reader review these five points of a perfect 
consecration, and he will be convinced of several things : 
First, that with such a complete devotement of self 
and life, there is no room or ground left for a "third 
blessing," so called. 

Second, that such a consecration cannot possibly be 
improved upon, and does not need to be repeated, but 
simply continued. This of course breaks up that view 
of consecration held by Epworth Leagues, Christian En- 
deavor Societies, Y. M. C. A.'s, and the whole Keswickian 
following. 

Third, when such consecrations are made, the church 
is deeply offended, is outspokenly indignant, and all 
hell itself is infuriated, and well it may be, for now 
something is going to happen! 

Fourth, when Christians do thus wholly and forever 
give themselves up to God in perfect consecration, some- 



152 A BOX OF TREASURE 

thing does happen! The holy fire falls from heaven; 
men and women are wholly sanctified; the Holy Ghost 
witnesses to the distinct work; a revival begins; and 
salvation free and full begins to roll like a tidal wave 
through the church and over the community. 



XVII 



CHRIST — THE ALTAR 



The book of Hebrews is a commentary on Leviticus. 
It reveals the Gospel in the Old Testament, and shows 
Christ where many had not seen Him. 

It was also written to answer and end the boasting 
of the Jews over the early Christians. The former 
pointed to their stately Temple, and gorgeously attired 
priests, and multitudes of lambs and bleeding victims, 
and said in their pride, "See what we have, while 
you have nothing.'^ 

The book of Hebrews is an overwhelming answer to 
that false claim and statement. The apostle shows that 
the Levitical economy, the mode of teaching truth then, 
was a kind of kindergarten way of instructing spiritual 
infants or children. That priests, lambs, altars, gar- 
ments, cerm'onies, cleansings, and so forth were but 
pictures and shadows of truths and experiences which 
now are known, possessed and enjoyed in a solid, sub- 
stantial and abiding way. The antitype takes the place 
of the type. The shadow gives way to the substance, 
and the Christian with his living, glowing realities, is 

153 



154 A BOX OF TREASUEE 

infinitely better off than the Jew in the midst of his 
symbols, no matter how grand, colossal and numerous 
these types may have been. 

So the argument of the apostle, and the Christian 
through him to the Jew, is this : "Have you a temple ? 
So have we, for God has said we are His Temple ! Your 
temple but symbolizes us. Did He not say to you what 
house will you build me, will I dwell in a house made 
of wood and stone? What house can confine me, when 
I inhabit the heavens ? Xo ! In that man will I dwell 
— ^he that humbleth himself and trembleth at my word. 
For ye are God's building. Ye are the Temple of the 
Holy Ghost.'' 

Again he argues, Have 3^ou a priest? So have we! 
What if yours is taken from one of the tribes and clothed 
with glittering vestments. Our priest is one forever 
after the order of Melchisedek, without father or mother, 
or beginning or ending of days; Jesus Christ the 
righteous. 

Still again. 

"Have you a lamb ? So have we, one without blemish 
and without spot, Jesus, the Holy One of God. Your 
lamb was but a tjrpe of ours, and ours sent from Heaven 
sweeps infinitely ahead of yours taken from the flock 
and fold. 

And yet still another argument: 



CHEIST — THE ALTAE 155 

'^Have you an altar ? So have we. "We have an altar 
whereof they have no right to eat, which serve the 
Tabernacle." 

Some preachers have asked us what right we had to 
claim Christ as our altar, and to say that as an altar 
He sanctifies us. Our reply has been that we say so 
for two reasons: First, it is stated by Scripture that 
"The altar sanctifies the gift," and, "Whatsover toucheth 
the altar shall be holy." 

Truly it is seen at a glance that whatever sanctifies 
and makes holy cannot be an ordinary or earthly thing 
or person. It takes the divine being to make one holy. 

Now the altar in the Jewish economy was as promi- 
nent an object as the lamb or priest. What could it 
stand for ? Surely not a Communion Table. This altar 
sanctifies everything or person upon it. Surely a Com- 
munion Table cannot do that. Are all people sanctified 
by touching a communion table? 

Paul says, "We have an altar," and then after a 
sentence which reads as a parenthesis he says, "Let 
us go forth therefore unto Him without the camp, bear- 
ing his reproach." 

Truly we are finding to-day that, while we are made 
to see the Lamb and the Priest in the Temple, yet to 
come to the Altar which sanctifies we have to go outside 
the camp, and find reproach in doing so. Hear the 



156 A BOX OF TREASURE 

word^ ^^We have an altar; whereof they have no right 
to eat which serve the tabernacle. For the bodies of 
those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary 
by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp. 
Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people 
with his own blood, suffered without the gate. Let us 
go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing 
his reproach." 

Let the reader remember that the Old Testament says 
the Jew had an altar, and that Paul in the New Testa- 
ment says the Christian has one. Let him also bear 
in mind that the Bible says that the Jewish altar sanc- 
tified and made holy. Will the Christian altar do less ? 
But who can sanctify but God ! So that the altar in 
both dispensations must refer to a divine being or work. 

Christ said that the altar sanctified the gift. Who. 
can be that altar but Himself. Certainly the altar and 
the gift are different, for one sanctifies, and the other 
is sanctified, and the latter by the former. "For He 
that sanctifieth, and they who are sanctified, are all 
one, wherefore he is not ashamed to call them brethren." 
Christ is evidently the altar according to Scripture. 

The second proof of this fact is seen in the demand of 
Redemption itself. 

There are three things which are imperative for our 
ealvation. They must be. One is a priest, the second 



CHRIST — THE ALTAE 157 

a victim, and the third an altar. Somebody has got to 
undertake our case and plead for us; some one must 
take our place and die for us to satisfy the law; and 
some one must sanctify us to get us fit for heaven. We 
need a priest to pray, a lamb to die, and an altar to 
sanctify. 

' Who furnished these three things? Did Christ do a 
part, and some one else another? Did some great angel 
assist Him in this work of Redemption? If so, then 
we have more than one Saviour, or Christ is only a 
partial Saviour. 

There is no need to speculate here, for the Bible says, 
*^He trod the wine press alone.'' He stood in the breach 
alone. There was no one with Him. Deliverance was 
laid on His shoulder. He was the Daysman, the only 
name given under heaven, the all in all we needed in 
salvation. 

Well, if Christ is all, and has done all, then He must 
be Priest, Lamb and Altar. 

There is no escape from this. Whether we make His 
human nature the lamb or victim that died, and the 
divine nature on which it was offered the altar of in- 
finite merit; or whether we say the whole Christ was 
priest, lamb or altar according to the need of the soul 
approaching Him, still it remains that we can see Him 
as the Altar. 



158 A BOX OF TREASURE 

There is no dispute to-day among the great body of 
God's people about the Priesthood of Christ. Nor is 
there any question among Evangelical Christians that 
Christ is the Lamb of God who died for our sins. The 
remaining lesson to be learned is that Jesus is our sanc- 
tifying Altar. That if He is our Lamb, and Priest, then 
He ought to be our Altar. That if as our Priest Ha 
prays for us, and as our Lamb dies for us to meet tho 
demands of the law, then as our Altar He should sane- 
tify us. 

This blessed fact many thousands have learned, and 
many thousands more are learning, as full salvation is 
preached, and Holiness camp-meetings multiply. 

Somehow God witnesses to the statements made that 
Christ is our Altar. We do not believe that if we said 
to a man, "The Communion Table sanctifies you wholly,'' 
that any one in his senses would believe it, or that the 
Holy Ghost would fall upon such a speech. But we 
have seen the Spirit fall, in marvellous and transform- 
ing power, upon many hundreds who have looked up 
and said, "I believe that Christ my Altar sanctifies me 
wholly now." 

One argument made by the opponent of the Altar 
truth is that the Jew brought his gift to the priest and 
he (the priest) laid the gift on the altar. This reason- 



CHRIST — THE ALTAR 159 

ing was made to overturn the thought that we laid our- 
selves on the altar. 

This is a mere quibbling over words. Why not 
object to the thought that we bring ourselves to the 
priest? In one sense it is absurd, and yet in another 
it is true. 

True it is that the priest laid the gift on the altar, 
but the gift had first been brought to him. So we bring 
ourselves to Christ, but Christ is the Altar as well as 
the Priest. We commit ourselves to Him, and through 
His grace and power we obtain what we seek. Without 
Him we can be nothing and do nothing. 



XVIII 



THE SUNRISE BLESSING 



The sentence above was written in reference to Jacob 
after his Peniel experience. In a beautiful sense it 
was a part of the blessing, and in a most striking manner 
became a sign and seal of the grace which had come 
to the night long wrestler and day dawn victor. 

We are convinced that the sunrise feature of this 
scriptural occurence belongs to sanctification as some- 
thing inherent as well as declarative; and that it is felt 
not only in the ushering in of the glorious triumphant 
life, but something that should and does abide. That 
not only is there realized immediately an unspeakably 
glad light streaming into the soul and life ; but each day 
seems to be a repetition of its bright predecessor, and so 
the sunrise remains as a fixture. We go down a road 
that has a perpetual morning on it. In a way known 
only to those to whom the sweet warm blessing has 
come, we enter upon a spiritual experience where the 
freshness, beauty, gladness and glory of the soul in its 
union and communion with the Lord, is like a continual 
new born day. We travel a way with a constant bright- 

160 



SUNSHINE BLESSING 161 

ness on the road. It has no declining sun ; it witnesses 
no eclipse; and although the course may be long, rock 
strewn and often margin lined with perils and sorrows, 
yet it knows no sunset. Light is always on the path, and 
it is always the radiance of a sunrise. 

We have known people who held unbrokenly to this 
charm and glory of holiness. We never met them but 
the sunrise look was on their faces ; and every thing that 
belongs to that first hour of day in freshness, buoyancy 
and gladness, was theirs in the spiritual sense in all they 
said and did. 

Some others after years of continual victory have 
gotten somehow under a declining sun. The shadows 
are unmistakable. The eastern look has gone from the 
countenance. A west wind is in the air. A droop of 
spirit, a melancholy way of talking, a pessimistic view 
of holiness and the Gospel itself comes like the notes of 
the whippoorwill through the gathering gloaming. 

It is wonderful how hard it is to convince some of 
these glory stripped children of light that the charm 
and power of holiness is gone, when their sun is beheld 
in the western instead of the eastern sky. That orthodox 
experience, good sense, excellent methods, correctness 
of life, and nothing else can take the place of that 
perpetual sunshine experience of the soul, and that sun- 



162 A BOX OP TREASURE 

rise expression on the face, in its effect upon the hearts, 
minds and consciences of the outside world. 

In a world like this, of eclipses, cloudy days, black 
nights and frequent sunsets; the sight of ia man with a 
constant gleam of peace, joy and victory in his spirit 
and on his countenance; with a holy gladness in his 
eyes, and the exultant note of moral triumph in his 
voice; this spectacle is evidently something so divine, 
80 unearthly, so supernatural that logic and argument 
are powerless in its presence, opposition sinks down over- 
come by it, and a mighty yearning swells the breast of 
the beholder to enter upon a life and possess a blessing 
so manifestly sent down to the human race from an- 
other and better country. 

There are some avowedly walking the way of holiness 
who never knew this eastern glory. They took a will-o'- 
the-wisp of their own fancy for the Sun of Eighteous- 
ness. Or some evangelist hung up a lantern and told the 
deluded soul it was a sunrise. Others followed moons 
that soon passed into the last quarter, and then the dark 
stage, and left them in a gloom deeper than they ever 
knew before. 

But there were others who really possessed the beau- 
tiful experience. Each day began with a sunrise. And 
there was one every hour. And the sun rose every 
minute. And a great light was in their faces; a deep 



SUNSHINE BLESSING 163 

gladness in their voices; and a mighty victory was in 
all their trials, temptations, labors, and battles. Every 
time we met them we saw the snn-flash on their fore- 
heads, heard the bird song of a happy freedom in their 
throats, and knew a sweet, fresh, unbroken daytime was 
in their souls. 

Then there came a change in the position and altitude 
of the sun. It was low in the west. With others it went 
completely down. So that with all the substitute of the 
stars ; and the lighting up the street with lamps ; and the 
carrying around of lanterns; the fact could not be hid 
that night had come. 

Some of these shadowed ones are full of sadness over 
this condition; and so concerning them we are full of 
hope. They will watch for the morning, and on their 
sad but expectant eyes the day will break again. 

There are others who do not seem to realize that "their 
Bun has gone down." They are counting the lamps 
on the streets, and using candles and some gasoline 
torches presented by a wandering evangelist. They 
seem to take more pleasure in the flash of a glow 
worm these days than in the sunrise glory of former 
years, and which came after a night spent in the tears 
of a life surrender and pleading, importunate supplica- 
tion with God. 

This leads us to say that the Peniel Sunrise was no 



164 A BOX OF TREASUKE 

accident. It was the result of something said, suffered 
and done on the human side. When these things took 
place with Jacob, God told him he had prevailed, was 
a prince, and gave him a road with a sunrise at the 
end of it and along which highway he was to walk the 
rest of his days and indeed forever. 

In like manner the same price has to be paid to-day 
for such a wonderful experience and life. And as the 
original cost has to be kept paid down in order to retain 
the heavenly glory, so it is that we see not only why 
some so-called seekers have never obtained; but why 
others who did enjoy it, have lost the blessing and per- 
haps forever. 

Never let it be forgotten that the heartsick Jacob 
sent everything he possessed and loved over the brook 
Peniel, while he remained alone on the western side. 

It takes everything we have to obtain the blessing of 
holiness. Like Jacob we must be left alone. Every- 
thing we own and everybody we hold most dear must 
be sent over the brook, put on the altar, or in a word 
yielded to God. The cattle, servants, business, the chil- 
dren, and finally Rachel must go. God is a jealous God. 
He must be all or nothing. He will not allow a rival 
of any kind. Eachel, or the person or thing which 
Rachel stands for, must go over the brook. The soul 
must be left first alone, and then find itself with God. 



SUNSHINE BLESSING 165 

As far as we can understand the passage of Scripture 
describing the wonderful scene, the Lord made no ap- 
pearance, and no wrestling spirit of prayer commenced 
until Jacob was alone. 

This ought to throw light on some beshadowed, gloomy 
cases today. They wonder why the burden, or agoniz- 
ing spirit of prayer for the blessing does not come 
upon them. The answer is that they are not yet solitary. 
They are holding on to some body or some thing. The 
soul must come into an experience of isolation and lone- 
liness before the divine wrestler appears, and that real 
prayer begins which is to mean so much for the in- 
dividual and so much to many more in the years that 
are to follow. 

The sunrise blessing, replete with sweet compensation 
for every earthly loss; full of an indescribable reward 
and glory, comes naturally and properly to one who has 
given up everything to God. But as it is only bestowed 
on one who has sent his all over the brook; what folly 
to look for such a pearl when we have not laid down 
the purchasing price ; when not only God, but even men 
can see that we are not left alone on the brookside. 
Some thing, or some one, is still with us. The business 
has not been forsaken or consecrated. The troubles 
have not been committed to God. The enemies have 
not been left with heaven. The children are not laid 



166 A BOX OF TREASURE 

on the altar. Kachel is still by the side and ruling in 
the heart and life. 

And yet with all this withheld from God, there are 
people who want the same sunrise to come upon them, 
that came upon a man who sent everything he had over 
the brook, prayed all night, and weeping in the cold, 
cheerless dawn, said to God, "I will not let thee go except 
thou bless me." 

The sunrise experience is a glorious one. It is better 
far than all that which time, money and men can give. 
It keeps the heart from breaking when the suns of earth 
set, moons pale, stars vanish, and the lamps and candles 
lit by human hands are extinguished. 

But it cannot be obtained for a song or for a trifle. 
An imperfect consecration cannot get in sight of it. 
All we have has to go over the brook. And we must 
be left alone. Then ascends the prevailing prayer ! Then 
comes the divine testimony that we have conquered, and 
are princes ! And then a sun rises to light the new-made 
prince upon his way to fields of duty, to a throne of 
glory, and to the home of his Father in heaven. 

After crossing Peniel, men who ha^e received the 
blessing of holiness seem to hold former loves and posses- 
sions with a new kind of tenure, pleasing and acceptable 
to God. They are given repossession of many things. 



SUN'SHINE BLESSING 167 

under a greater light, a sweeter affection, and with God 
as supreme over everything and all the time. 

If this heavenly life should be broken, and the busi- 
ness or idols get back and uppermost again; if, in a 
word, the Lord is made second in place in the heart, 
mind and life by anything or anyone ; then the sunrise 
glory at once departs! Moreover, everybody can see it 
is gone. The word Ichabod is on the wall. 

The following view will now be placed before every 
thoughtful observer, viz., one class of people camping on 
the cast side of Peniel with their sun on the west side. 
Others on the west side with their sun gone down en- 
tirely. Still others groping their distant way under the 
stars. Others still lighting their lamps at home. And 
still others borrowing candles from individuals met in 
the many meetings which they restlessly and feverishly 
frequent. 

Listen how they knock and call! Our sun has gone 
down! Who will give us light? Who will direct and 
lead us from our sunset and midnight, to the glorious 
sunrise we saw and felt and knew in other days? 

The only reply to be given is, that the same price paid 
to secure in the first instance is necessary to recover 
the blessing when it is lost. Everything has to be sent 
over the brook again. The business must be made 
secondary and tributary. The idol must be dethroned. 



168 A BOX OF TREASURE 

1 

The midnight wrestle and lonely struggle must be re- 
sumed. The weeping words must be spoken to God, "I 
will not let thee go except thou bless me !" When lo ! 
the brook is crossed by the supplicator himself; the old- 
time glory is restored; the former power is back; perfect 
love once more swells and overflows the heart, and the 
prince turns with a smile to walk a road that he notices 
with a tender thrilling joy, has a beautiful golden sun- 
rise at the end. 



XIX 



RELIGIOUS SINGING 



Every one is agreed as to the power of song. And 
yet it would be hard to analyze the strange, strong in- 
fluence it produces on mind and heart. 

It is indeed remarkable how the human voice, when 
thrown from conversation into another kind of intona- 
tion, a versified, melodized utterance, that instantly, 
every auditor in hall or church feels differently and 
acts differently. New sets of emotions seem to be stirred, 
thought moves on a higher plane, visions of a purer, 
nobler life in the future or past fill the mind and swell 
the soul, and a better man exists for a few moments 
if not for all time. 

National hjrmns and anthems wonderfully mold and 
shape a country's character and history. During royal 
reigns in France the Marseillaise is not allowed to be 
Bung. It seems able to produce a revolution with a 
single rendition. 

We question whether any man can hear the Songs 
of his Homeland in a foreign country without being 
profoundly moved. 

169 



170 A BOX OF TREASURE 

In addition to the national anthem there is a variety 
of melodies bearing on friendship, love and the home 
life, all of which contribute their influence in the forma- 
tion of individual character, and, heard in after years, 
can never be listened to without emotion. 

The mother of the writer had cradle songs, and hymns 
we have heard her sing in the evening by the fireside, 
which wrought abiding impressions for good on the 
hearts and lives of her children. 

Then there were the cotton-field chants sung by the 
negroes at their work, and the wild, weird melodies ren- 
dered by the colored deck hands of the steamboats on the 
Yazoo and Mississippi Elvers, that once heard left an 
everlasting effect upon the mind. 

Any kind of music seems to attract the human family, 
the hand organ on the street, the soldier's love ditty 
in the camp, the strumming guitar amid the moonlit 
trees, the flute from over the water, and the improvised 
quartette on the big liner in mid-ocean. We remember 
once how two gentlemen singing at a piano in the saloon 
of a steamer on the Mediterranean brought almost every 
passenger into the room, while officers of the ship hung 
around the door, and sailor faces lined the transoms. 
It was a study to watch the countenances of this silent 
and cosmopolitan audience. The skins were of every 
color, white, yellow, red, brown and black, and yet all 



RELIGIOUS SINGING 171 

had the same expression of deep, unaffected interest. 
The heart was asserting itself. The soul was touched. 
A. common humanity was present. 

David spoke of "songs in the night," and at once a 
troop of recollections comes to us all of beautiful hours 
and experiences gone by, through the power of those 
single four words. He had doubtless listened to music 
in the night time as we have, and been affected as we 
were. 

Numerous have been the times that we have gone to 
our hotel window and listened to students singing as 
they went back to college, until the last voice died away 
on the night air. 

Eepeatedly we have stood on the wharf in Yicksburg 
and seen one of our mammoth palatial steamboats at 
the hour of sunset swing out into the mile wide 
Mississippi, turn her head southward towards New 
Orleans, and gradually disappear around the distant bend 
with fifty deck hands chanting one of those primitive, 
blood-tingling, eye-filling river songs which remains 
ever after a beautiful and strangely sorrowful memory. 
As the weird strains died out along the shadowy shores, 
and down the misty stream, we have turned back into 
the city and, as we walked upon tlie streets felt the 
emptiness of the world, the unsatisfactoriness of this 
life, with such a longing for a happier world and a bet- 



172 A BOX OF TREASURE 

ter life, that at times we thought the heart would fairly 
break. 

It is not to be wondered at, that God has laid his hand 
on music and made it one of his mighty factors and 
instruments for the spread of the Gospel. 

The Old Testament has a good deal to say about the 
song side of salvation, and speaks of the "singers," and 
also "the harps with a solemn sound." 

In the New Testament we read that Jesus sang with 
his disciples. The words of that hymH can doubtless 
be traced back, but how we would love to know the 
melody. Paul and Silas sang at midnight in prison, 
and found a comfort in it, while the jailer and prisoners 
realized a conviction, that perhaps could not have been 
felt or produced at that time by any other means of 
grace. 

Song seems to be one of the wings of the flying angel 
of Truth. And so when God sent the preacher John 
Wesley to bless the world, he dispatched with him the 
singer Charles Wesley, to bless it even more. The 
same Holy Spirit, in calling Moody to the work, 
put Sankey by his side. And when he commissioned 
Whittle he joined Bliss with him. And so on to this 
day, after the preacher prays, the people sing ; and when 
the sermon is ended the congregation sings again. While 



RELIGIOUS SINGING 173 

after the selection of an evangelist is made, the next 
question is who shall assist him by leading in song ? 

As we are creatures of manifold powers and sensi- 
bilities; as we are indeed in a creative sense harps of 
a thousand strings, it is needful that our hymns and 
spiritual songs should cover the whole range of spiritual 
feeling. We did not say of sentiment. We are speak- 
ing of the moral and spiritual realm and what properly 
belongs to that, in a pure elevating, comforting, in- 
spiring, heart-revealing, Christ-manifesting, God-elevat- 
ing collection of words and melody. 

We believe that songs which refer to broken domestic 
ties, and appeal to the natural affections have no right- 
ful place in a true h3rmnology. They make the people 
weep, but such tears are not those that God wants, and 
that the Word of God properly preached or incarnated 
in hymn is intended and able to produce. 

Moreover, the hymns which deserve the name should 
have a variety of verbal expression as well as melody, 
in order to meet every one of the moods and tenses, every 
inward state and condition, every loss and possession, 
every hope and despair, and every privilege and danger 
of this most wonderful creation of God, a human soul. 

Men need to be awed with anthems of the great- 
ness and grandeur of God; horror-stricken with minor 
chord productions about the world of the lost ; awakened 



174 A BOX OP TREASURE 

from slumber by trumpet-like sounds of the Judgment ; 
as well as comforted in sorrow, strengthened in trial and 
temptation, and stimulated to do and endure for the 
holy cause of heaven. 

A hymn with doggered lines or wretched poetry ought 
not to be allowed in a respectable hymn-book. Neither 
should be tolerated old love songs like "Annie Laurie/' 
''Belle of the Mohawk Vale/' and many others that have 
clipped off their every-day garments, put on Sunday 
clothes as to sacred words, and now try to pass them- 
selves off for saints or angels. 

There are some of our modern day pieces that are so 
full of associations of early days and serenading nights, 
.that the mood produced is anything but devotional and 
religious when they are sung. The words, "Let us go 
courting," would be eminently more fitting as a con- 
clusion from the pulpit, than the sentence, "Let us 
pray." 

However, we must confess that after one of these 
hymns we are glad to hear somebody say, "Let us pray." 
We feel the need of it — ^not only on behalf of the 
robbed and wronged congregation, but for the singers 
themselves. Yes, indeed — ^let us pray after some of the 
jigs, waltzes, quicksteps, love songs and regular negro 
cabin breakdowns, misnamed hymns, we have heard in 



RELIGIOUS SINGING 175 

Sunday schools, churches, protracted meetings, and even 
on holiness camp grounds. 

How few of the popular gospel meeting hymn books 
of the day are marked with any broadness as to the 
great subjects and doctrines of the Bible. Let the reader 
look at the departments of Wesley's hymn books, and 
the narrow jollification line of the Issues of to-day. 

With some there is not a single solemn opening piece 
of the Being and attributes of God. Not a solitary 
h}Tnn about hell, and none on the Day of Judgment, as 
described in the Bible, and as sung by Watts, and John 
and Charles Wesley. The song books that appeal to 
the vitiated taste to-day are mainly on the ^^Old Black 
Joe," "Jollification Jump," "Moonlight on the Mother's 
Grave," and "Mother's Boy" line. People think these 
are religious hymns, when they are not on spiritual 
and supernatural planes, but in the domestic and natural 
realms. 

Then, as we read the wretched doggerel lines claiming 
to be poetry, in some published hymn books, and con- 
trast them with the pure, chaste, refined, elevated, in- 
fipired as well as rhythmic verses of John and Charles 
Wesley, of Watts and Newton, of Faber and Moore, 
we confess to a sickness of heart and a nausea else- 
where, and a conviction irresistible, that difficulty of 



176 A BOX OF TREASUBE 

hearing, yes, stone deafness, would not be an unmixed 
evil under certain circumstances. 

The mother of the writer informed us when we v/ere 
a boy, that the reading of a hymn by a Methodist 
preacher, his solemn lining it out to the congregation, 
and the deeply impressive melody to which it was sung 
made a lifetime impression upon her. The music was 
"Windham;" the words ran — 

Shall I for fear of feeble man. 
The Spirit's course in me restrain? 
Or undismayed by deed and word. 
Be a true witness for my Lord ! 

Shall I to soothe the unholy throng 
Soften my speech or smooth my tongue; 
To gain earth's gilded toys or flee 
The cross endured, my Lord, by Thee ! 

What then is he whose face I dread, 
Whose wrath or scorn make me afraid ? 
A man ? An heir of death ! A slave 
To sin! — A bubble on the wave! 

Yea, let men rage since thou wilt spread 
Thy shadowing wings around my head ; 
Since in all time thy tender love 
Will still my sure protection prove. 



RELIGIOUS SINGING 177 

She said that the preacher dwelt in a most effective 
way upon the last tnree words of the second and fourth 
lines in the first two stanzas. That his noble bearing 
and fine scorn as he read the third verse was indescrib- 
able. While the exultation in the fourth came like an 
inspiration. 

She pictured the man's solemnity, dignity, unctions 
delivery and unmistakable moral superiority, speaking 
like one who had just come from the presence of God; 
the singing by many voices of the great hymn to the 
Heaven-inspired melody of Windham; and she had the 
writer as much moved as the people had been in that 
far-away day of her girlhood. 

To hear of such things, and then in these latter days, 
see a man in a short bobtail sack coat kick up his heels 
and go to singing — 

"On Monday I am happy. 
On Tuesday I am gay — " 
etc., etc., 

makes us yearn with a great longing for the return to 
our midst of some beautiful things that have faded 
and fled away. 

We conclude while in this mood with the words of 
David: 



178 A BOX QF TREASURE 

"It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, 
and to sing praises unto thy name, most High. 

To shew forth thy loving kindness in the morning, 
and thy faithfulness every night. 

Upon an instrument of ten strings, and upon the 
psaltery; upon the harp with a solemn sound." 



XX 



THE DIVINE MONOPOLY 



The meaning of the expression above is not intended 
to cover the individual and body of people who in dif- 
ferent ways try to capture and possess the divine being, 
and by opinion, speech or creed warn all others off from 
their fancied possession. Of course this caption could 
be made to represent those personages, and they are 
recognized with hardly an introduction needed. 

A religious denomination announcing themselves to 
be "Christians,'' "The Church of God" and "The Israel 
of God," have attempted a divine monopoly in their 
ecclesiastical name or designation. It may not have 
been intended by them, and no arrogant, excluding spirit 
may have filled them when they selected the usurping 
title; but it is evident to the thoughtful that all such 
appellations are virtual slaps in the face of every other 
branch of the Christian church. 

If a religious paper should call itself "God's Witness 
and Advocate of Bible Holiness," the legitimate infer- 
ence would be that it was not only God's special organ, 
but God's only organ in the world for teaching and 

179 



180 A BOX OF TREASURE 

spreading holiness. All other papers by this title 
would be but imitators, and standing in secondary and 
remote degrees from the Throne. The name would not 
only be an impertinence, but a direct insult to all other 
holiness papers published. It would be an attempted 
Divine monopoly. 

This mistaken and reprehensible practice is seen in 
the use of the words *^My Christ" and "Father" by 
individuals in testimony meetings and in the pulpit. 

Good taste alone, aside from considering the common 
rights of the, church and mankind, should deliver a 
person from this piece of arrogance and impertinence. 
The Bible teaches us that Christ died for all and lives 
for all. That God loves the world. That he has no 
partiality. And the Saviour told us that in addressing 
the First Person in the Trinity we should say "Our 
Father." 

We once received a letter from a young lady who 
wrote, "Father has told me I must do so and so," and 
"Father has directed me to come out of the church," 
etc., etc. At first I judged she was speaking of her 
earthly parent, when to our amazement we discovered, 
as we read farther on, that she was referring to God. 

The shock of this first experience we have never forgot- 
ten, We did not reply to the party, as we felt the case was 
hopejess. But since then we have heard the expression 



THE DIVINE MONOPOLY 181 

again and again sounded in the pulpit — ^generally by 
young evangelists — hardly ever by pastors, or by men 
of ripened years. The term used is so flippant, breathes 
such unwarranted familiarity with the Almighty, con- 
tains such an evidently boastful spirit, and such a dis- 
regard of the equal rights of redeemed humanity, that 
its every enunciation sends a dagger-like pain to the 
soul, and a great sorrow over the spirit. 

We know of but One who, as God's only begotten 
Son, has the right to speak to and of the Divine First 
Person in this way. In private the soul may properly 
address the Lord after this manner ; but in public it is 
an ecclesiastical impertinence and a religious atrocity. 

But the Divine monopoly to which we allude in the 
caption of this chapter refers not to our attempted cap- 
ture of the Almighty, but to his appropriation and 
possession of us. 

He has a right to do this, and so indicates his will 
and moves upon us accordingly. He would be everything 
to us in demanding all from us. 

Most people would not have God in the life at all. 
Many of his followers would possess him in a restricted 
sense. They would use him very much as they do the 
carpenter, tradesman, physician, dentist, butcher, baker 
and all the different vendors and employes of life. 

Just as they would call in the lawyer to prepare a 



182 A BOX OF TREASUEE 

legal paper, give advice and bow him out of door and 
recollection. And even as they would call on a surgeon 
to bind a broken joint and dismiss him with restoration 
of strength and health; so they would have the Lord 
look in on them a couple of hours on Sunday; comfort 
them in a day of sorrow; but after that take himself 
out of sight and thought until needed and summoned 
again. 

We verily believe that there are many people who 
only regard Christ in this light, to be called up and 
looked to when death enters the house. Then he is 
expected to console, and do it well. After that he should 
retire until by another bereavement he is wanted once 
more. 

This treatment of the Saviour puts him very much 
on the line and plane of a bottle of liniment or tooth- 
ache drops to be used when needed, and set aside on the 
mantel or in the closet and be forgotten unless the 
pain returns. 

God will never submit to such dishonor and degrada- 
tion. He will be all or nothing. And he will have 
us all the time, or not at all. 

One of the reasons that the Lord has likened himself 
to almost everything that has value and beauty in it, 
and to every one that comes with benefit and blessing 



THE DIVINE MONOPOLY 183 

to the human race, is to give birth to the thought and 
establish the fact of the Divine Monopoly Claim. 

We find that God is compared to wind, fire, heat, light, 
water, bread, wine, certain fruits and flowers, to a sun, 
star, day dawn, a door, wall, tower, city, and life itself. 
Then he has introduced himself in his relations to and 
helps to the soul as Friend, Lawyer, Physician, Judge, 
Exemplar, Adviser, Comforter, Teacher, Eewarder, 
Guide, Captain, King, Euler, Tradesman, Potter, Lapi- 
dary, Father, Brother, Husband, Bridegroom, and in 
other terms and by still other figures too numerous to 
mention. 

The significance in all this is that God can be and 
is all things to us. The legitimate and certain con- 
clusion from the above fact is that as such he can mo- 
nopolize us, and that easily, and do it to our highest 
good as well as perfect happiness. 

If any one will glance at the offices of a number of 
the living figures used, he will see that each one neces- 
sarily takes quite a portion of time out of one's life: 
whether it be lawyer, physician, friend, tradesman, guide, 
teacher, ruler or any one of the personages and positions 
mentioned. 

But notice that God announces he is all of them! 
This means of course, then, that he has us all the time, 



184 A BOX OF TREASURE 

and altogether, and we are brought face to face with 
the Divine Monopoly. 

Can any one see a monopoly that injures here, where 
the Lord is the best of counsellors^ guides, guards ^-nd 
friends ? 

Men have been writing much of late years about the 
''simple life," but it seems that we have it here in its 
reality and perfection. 

And certainly it is the restful and undisturbed life. 
For if we make God everything to us ; if we go to him 
for all things and at all times, the defections and de- 
sertions of men will not affect us, nor afflict us, nor 
change our course, nor stop our progress in duty and 
for heaven one siagle moment of time. God^s Monopoly 
will have destroyed the power of the corporations and 
combinations of men. 

It is a study to watch the agitations, perturbations 
and fluctuations of individuals who shape their lives to 
avoid the stonings of the public and win instead the 
oxen sacrifices all entwined with garlands and ropes 
of roses. 

If the flowers appear, their heaven has come and they 
are radiant, hopeful and joyous. If the rocks begin to 
patter around and wounds are felt, the fret, worry, 
trouble and despair of the human target is something 
comical as well as pitiful to see. They trusted God 



THE DIVINE MONOPOLY 185 

only in the springtime of the year. They were strong 
in faith and hope only when men were throwing bouquets 
at them. When the winter of human discontent and 
disfavor came, they did not know God as a Fire to keep 
them warm, or as a Sun to bring forth fairer flowers 
than ever waved in an earthly atmosphere or struck root 
in the soil of this old world. When men rained stones. 
upon them, they knew not God as the shadow of a great 
Rock in a weary land, as a shelter in the time of storm, 
and as a wall of protection, a strong tower of refuge, 
and an all encompassing shield, so that the pestilence 
that walketh by night and the arrow that flieth by day, 
and the strife of tongues and the wrath of man would 
all alike fail to reach the object of human and Satanic 
hatred. 

But the man who lets God have him wholly and all 
the time, knows the perfect peace and security of which 
we write. A thousand fall at his side, and ten thousand 
at his right hand; but the calamities mentioned in the 
Holy Book do not come nigh unto him. "He shall call 
upon me and I will answer him; I will be with him 
in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him. With 
long life will I satisfy him and shew him my salvation." 



XXI 



CELESTIAL PROPERTY 



Elsewhere we have written about the wisdom, duty 
and practicability of laying up treasure in heaven. In 
the present chapter we desire to dwell upon the nature or 
character of that property which we are told can be 
laid up in the skies for our present, future and everlast- 
ing enrichment. 

It is quite remarkable that while there are no lines 
of communication between this world and the heavenly 
land similar to those that bridge and bring together 
the nations and continents of the globe on which we 
dwell, yet there is communication of the most unmis- 
takable kind; and there is transportation of spirit; and 
a remarkable transmutation of things counted most 
valuable on earth, into forms of greatly increased value 
in heaven. 

There are bills of exchange, and letters of credit 
well known in the business world, which look to the un- 
initiated like so many worthless pieces of printed paper ; 
but when these same unimposing appearing documents 
are presented in far distant foreign countries at great 

186 



CELESTIAL PROPERTY 187 

banks and commercial houses, they cause a perfect stream 
of gold to be poured from the cashier's into the pre- 
senter's hands. 

After one sight or hint of this business method among 
men, the thought of transfer of property from earth to 
heaven by the child of God ought not to strike the mind 
with amazement, but with the glad recognition of such 
a possibility. 

God is ready to do a most profitable business with 
the soul. He has the strongest of banks, the largest 
of clearing houses, and the safest of agencies in the re- 
ception of what we entrust and deposit with him, and in 
the transfer of all such values to heaven, where they 
will await our presence and check, in sums and amounts 
tremendously added to by the interest and dividends 
declared in the kingdom of glory. 

One thing we can lay up in heaven is money. One 
would think from the grudging gifts of many of God's 
people, the way that many contributions to the cause 
of the gospel have to be begged, surprised and literally 
wrenched out of others, that the general idea is that all 
such money given is value lost; when the fact is that 
the only part of our earthly treasure in gold and silver 
and bank notes which is saved from a burning world 
and the wreck and ruin of time is that portion which 
we gave to heaven. 



188 A BOX OF TREASURE 

This very truth was brought out by the Saviour in the 
parable of the unjust steward. Very many have been 
the expository and explanatory struggles of scholars, 
commentators and preachers over this remarkable pas- 
sage of Scripture, but nearly all we ever heard or read 
agree that one teaching of these words of our Lord is, 
that we can so use our money here on earth as that it 
will receive us in everlasting habitations in heaven in 
the sense of reward and exaltation. In other words, 
God makes the moneyed sacrifices of his people to meet 
and greet and bless them in the skies, in forms of such 
increased spiritual wealth, as no bill of exchange could 
ever secure, and no bank of this world ever dream of 
presenting to any applicant. 

As we have contemplated the stinginess of many 
professed Christians, and thought, suppose the pave- 
ment before each mansion, and the crown on each head in 
heaven was made out of the moneyed gifts people made 
to the cause of Christ on earth — then how many heads 
would have coronets of copper, and how many heavenly 
homes would have no golden street before it, but a mud 
puddle instead. It would be a good idea to ship enough 
property through the exchange of heaven to secure a 
crown of twenty-four carats of the noblest of metals, 
and a front walk of gold that will look a little larger 



CELESTIAL PROPERTY 189 

than a pocket handkerchief, or better still, attain at 
least the proportions of a parlor rug. 

But some one replies, what if a person is poor in 
this world's goods, what has he got that will begin to 
do what is suggested. Our answer is that all such cases 
are most happily covered in the history of the woman 
whom Christ saw throw two mites of copper in the 
treasury. They were worth about a farthing or so of 
English money, but it was all she had on earth. The 
Saviour declared she had given all she owned. Hence 
the gift of the woman outranked that of others made 
that day; for they, said Christ, cast in of their abund- 
ance, but she threw in everything that she possessed. 

What a wonderful investment that lonely poverty- 
stricken worshiper made that day. What an overwhelm- 
ing interest it has paid into the kingdom of Christ on 
earth. How innumerable have been similar investments 
which this act has brought forth. What coupons of 
grace, and dividends of blessing have been attached to 
or flowed from the little deposit of that morning. What 
royal estates and possessions of happiness, blessedness 
and glory have already rolled upon, and will continue 
to come upon that woman in heaven for the gift she 
made to God in the deepest poverty, giving all she had, 
and dreaming not that anyone beheld or knew of the 
act. As for her crown — when we see it, men will think 



190 A BOX OF TREASURE 

that the output of an hundred rich mines was somehow 
wrought in it. As for the golden pavement in front of 
her door, it will be a thousand feet deep, run up and 
down the street a mile or so, sheathe her side alley and 
back yard, and have blocks enough piled up in her ware- 
house to contribute handsome fronts to the mansions of 
a whole denomination of rich and stingy Christians who 
used to give a mere trifle out of their abundance, and 
called it in their consummate meanness and profound 
ignorance, "The Widow's Mite." It is perfectly amazing 
to see how many who claim to give the contribution of 
the poor widow, overlook the fact that she gave her 
ALL to God. 

A second piece of earthly property we can lay up in 
heaven is our prayers. 

We are told that they are bottled, up there. Here is 
not only a transfer of value, but an unmistakable teach- 
ing of a gathered and preserved influence in heaven, 
which God uses in and for his Kingdom's victory and 
advancement on earth. Not only is the petitioner made 
better by the supplications he offers for others, but in 
some way the vessels in w^hich they are preserved are 
uncorked, and the prayer heard and kept in the skies 
is turned back again on the world and accomplishes 
wonders of grace through the blessing of the Almighty 
to whom they were addressed. 



CELESTIAL PROPERTY 191 

A third piece of property in heaven is our good works. 

By a strange kind of transmutation, or by a trans- 
ference of values not the less remarkable, the words 
and deeds spoken and lived for Christ and humanity 
are found again in the Kingdom of Glory awaiting ua 
in diversified forms of incalculable spiritual wealth. 

Christ speaks of a cup of cold water given in his name 
on earth, meeting us in the city of God in the changed 
form of ^ blessed reward. Labor in his service shall be 
re-beheld in the shining of the resurrected body, and 
souls saved shall be numbered like glittering stars in a 
crown. Suffering for Christ's sake shall be recompensed 
with a throne, and differing degrees of faithfulness to 
him shall be recognized by diverse and graded degrees 
of glory as one star is seen to surpass another in the 
heavens. 

Very strict and faithful account is kept in the upper 
world of the good works, and the various classes of 
such labors rendered by the godly in the name of the 
Lord Jesus. He numbers them off at the Day of Judg^ 
ment, saying, "You fed me," "You gave me drink," 
"You clothed me," "You entertained me as a stranger," 
"You visited me when I was sick," "And I was in prison 
and you came unto me." 

Nothing that we are doing for him is unobserved or 
overlooked, and not a single deed shall be unrewarded 



192 A BOX OF TREASURE 

in the skies. Hence the more we accomplish for him 
the better for mankind, and the better for our own souls 
even in time. But in addition it is equally true that 
the more we abound in the work of the Lord the greater 
treasure we are laying up in heaven, and the vaster 
the spiritual fortune that will be there to astonish and 
delight us on our arrival. 

It is said of a certain queen in Europe that she gave 
two exceedingly valuable pearls to be sold in order to 
found an institution of mercy for poor and undone 
women. That once sitting by the side of one of the 
dying inmates, the sufferer gasped out with her last 
breath, "But for your goodness and kindness I would 
not have had this bed on which to die, nor heard of 
my Saviour/^ bent forward, kissed the hand of the 
queen, left two great tears glistening <ipon it, and fell 
upon the pillow dead. It is said of the queen that 
looking at the tears shining on the back of her hand, 
and then gazing upward, she said softly and reverently, 

"My Saviour, thou hast already sent back to me my 
two pearls — and they are so much more beautiful than 
those I gave to Thee." 

It was a beautiful thought and a true one as well. 
But this, according to the Bible, is not all of the re- 
ward. The big pay day is to come. The cashing of 



CELESTIAL PROPERTY 193 

the letter of credit is yet to take place. The full fortune 
is to be turned over to us in the New Jerusalem. 

It is true that even in this life, according to the Bible, 
God pays his children back in the very lines they gave 
to him — but it is careful always to state that a crown 
is laid up against "that day"; and that in the world 
to come we will have exceeding and abundant weights 
of glory, as well as life everlasting. 



XXII 



DISAPPOINTMENT 



It would be difficult to define the word disappoint- 
ment in a way to meet the approval of the heart. After 
all the head agreed to as to correctness of definition, 
the literal rendering of the word, yet no term nor 
sentence of explanation could bring out the pangs felt 
by the inner nature when the suffering indicated by the 
expression took place. 

We regard it as constituting a necessary experience 
even though its pangs are bitter in the extreme, and 
continue long years in their melancholy abiding. It is 
as important to be undeceived about persons and things, 
about conditions and circumstances, as to be taught in 
even more positive ways in other lines. The bright, 
eager anticipation of young people, contrasted with the 
thoughtful, sober, sad, unexpectant look of those who 
are older and have become wiser, is one of the features 
of human life that is certain to strike the beholder. 

Artists tell us that lines intended to represent mirth 
and gladness are made with upward strokes. In sorrow 
the marks are reversed and are drawn downward. To 

194 



DISAPPOINTMENT 195 

observe these strange revealing symbols, these drooping 
facial signs that constitute some of the letters of a great 
heart and life language is a study for the curious and 
a most pathetic occupation for the lover and well wisher 
of his race. 

We are placed here in this world to learn. Knowledge 
of every kind is certain to come where we are both 
peculiarly situated and most faithfully presided over. 
Some lessons we could doubtless get along very well 
without. Some teaching is essential. A good deal of 
our information came through processes that were simply 
heartbreaking, though afterwards it was heart-making, 
if the idea involved in the term will be considered. 

Strange to say that nearly all learning is attended 
with pain. There are lessons that in their mastery we 
felt soul and body would part. The obtainment of still 
other knowledge left us stricken, stunned, and all but 
hopeless as we saw the sun go down at midday with no 
prospect apparently of ever rising again. 

But the ivy grew over the life ruin. There came 
strange, sweet resurrections from the tomb we had 
built. And another Sun rose upon us bringing heal- 
ing in his wings, and under whose gentle, penetrating, 
revealing light we learned more precious, heart-com- 
forting, life-delivering and character-exalting truths 
than could ever be acquired under the natural sun, or all 



196 A BOX OF TREASURE 

the illuminations of candle, lamp, arc light and burner 
falling on manuscript and book, and streaming over 
desk, platform and pulpit itself. 

Bereavement, loss and disappointment under the bless- 
ing of God prove to be three of our greatest earthly 
teachers ; and the greatest of these three is Disappoint- 
ment. Indeed, it is evident that the two first named 
are but different forms of the last. So all hail to Dis- 
appointment. 

There is a disappointment which comes to us in early 
life, relative to things that surrounded us, and that 
seemed what really they were not. A quicksand appears 
to be as firm and solid looking as any other body of 
sand, but it is not. It is necessary to discover this for 
the sake of our o^vn preservation. 

Then v/e found that the most gorgeous flowers did 
not possess the sweetest odors ; while some humble look- 
ing plants fairly loaded the atmosphere with their fra- 
grance. Then what a surprise, not to say mental shock, 
we experienced as children when, after gazing with ad- 
miration at the brilliant plumage of the peacock, we a 
little later heard his voice. All these happenings were 
preparations for, as well as illustrations of, deeper dis- 
coveries yet to be made. 

Second, there was a disappointment in what out- 
wardly seemed to be caskets full of treasure, fairy 



DISAPPOIl^TMENT 197 

bowers of enjoyment, and El Dorados of happiness. 
There was the first outing, the first ball, and all the 
other new untried experiences of the social life. But 
at the close of the long day; at the end of the night 
with its giddy whirl, hot air and empty nothings; how 
differently the disordered room and faded arbor looked ! 
There was another set of experiences set up in the mind, 
and some opinions formed very different from what; had 
been entertained beforehand. 

There had been some pleasure — ^but, alas ! how. much 
pain. Darkness was falling on some places that once 
seemed light; and light was streaming where formerly 
there had been great darkness. We found out that all 
is not gold that glitters ; that some things, like Christmas 
trees, cannot bear fruit, although confections may be 
tied on to the branches for a brief while. 

All these discoveries were hints and prophecies of 
what lay up for the life explorer and traveler in the far 
away misty years of the future; and so much alike was 
the disenchantment that we could use the first party 
picnic, dance, and theater, with its flimsy scenery and 
painted people, as exact illustrations. 

Third, there is a disappointment created through 
the false promises of the great adversary. 

Life is not what he whispered it would be in his 
Bervice. Sin is not the satisfying experience he insisted 



198 A BOX OF TREASURE 

it was. He was careful to say nothing about the worm 
buried in the lovely, luscious fruit. He made no refer- 
ence to the thorn which grew under the rose. And was 
studious to hide the serpent coiled up under the shadow 
of a honeysuckle arbor. 

So through his falsehoods we ran after the rainbow, 
but did not find the bag of gold at either end. We took 
Will o' the Wisps to be Stars of Bethlehem. And 
firmly believed for years we could sow wild oats and 
reap wheat; could plant brambles and then gather from 
them in after life, handfuls of roses and baskets of 
pomegranates. 

Certainly it is well to be taught right on these lines, 
and here is where we can behold Disappointment doing 
us a world of good. 

A fourth disappointment is realized in ourselves. 

We do not know what right we had in starting life, 
to indulge in such day dreams as we all cherished. 
Pinnacles of fame were ascended; in our conceit we were 
smarter than anybody; outshone everybody; and in im- 
agination got elected to the highest offices in church 
and State, and had everybody bowing and bending to 
us because of our fancied gifts, superior wisdom and 
superlative excellency in everything. 

Time is a marvellous revealer, ideal breaker and 
general convincer. We did not get elected, not even 



DISAPPOINTMENT 199 

to the office of a constable. No one dreamed of mak 
ing us a bishop or putting us at the head of the nation. 
By some remarkable oversight, as we once thought, our 
presence was not desired, our counsel asked, our in- 
fluence solicited in times and at places we felt assured 
we were the only person who could deliver the com- 
munity, church or country. 

Well ! It is about over with most of us now ; and 
we are content to be plain, ordinarily gifted people; to 
be a glow worm by the side of a country fence, a tin 
lantern in a barn, instead of a Bartholdi Statue towering 
in a world's harbor and flashing electric light far out 
to sea. 

The relief is great to ourselves, and exceedingly so 
to the people around us. We re-read the parable of 
the frog and the ox and begin to take w^arning in time. 
Better still, we fix our eyes afresh on that lowly seat 
Jesus spoke about and learn the secret of happiness in 
the same place where Mary was taught, and hear the 
same voice saying to us that the good gift which we 
have chosen shall never be taken away from us. 

Then there is a disappointment in our character as 
well as in our fancied abilities. We have not been as 
courageous at times as we should; nor as sweet under 
provocation; nor as silent under injury and wrong. 
Sometimes it would have been better, had we spoken 



200 A BOX OF TKEASURE 

out for the truth, and then there were seasons when we 
should have been still and left the vindication of our- 
selves and the truth with God. Christ did both, and 
never erred. Somehow we got things mixed. 

So we handled flashing swords and were quite free in 
the amputation of ears we never made. It kept the 
Saviour busy, especially in our earlier religious life, in 
healing people we had wounded in our efiorts to instruct 
and save. 

As the sun draws near the western horizon of life; 
and the White Judgment Throne gets near, we find the 
boast going out of us as we review our past labors and 
battles, while the Blood of Jesus Christ becomes our 
sovereign comfort, heart stay, lip plea and life victory. 
So it is that our disappointment in self leads us to 
higher views of Christ, and better lives for ourselves. 
Therefore we thank God, take fresh courage, and push 
on to the skies. 

A fifth disappointment is in people whom we loved, 
trusted and leaned upon. It is clear that it takes these 
very affections and devotions to create the pang now 
alluded to. For where we have not loved nor trusted 
there can hardly be a falling away from us, nor the 
suffering experienced through having been forsaken and 
betrayed 

We question whether there is a keener agony in our 



DISAPPOINTMENT 201 

earthly life than this. The Saviour felt it and left the 
expression of this sorrow in language never to be for- 
gotten. David suffered in this sad part of human his- 
tory. It was his familiar friend, Ahithophel, who lifted 
up his voice, hand and heel against him. He said he 
could have endured the wrong and injury itself better, 
but for the fact that a friend had done it. 

The coldness of an old-time friend hurts peculiarly. 
The stab of Pompey's dagger goes deeper than the 
sword of strangers and avowed enemies. The betrayal 
of a trust; the violation of a promise; the disregard of 
an obligation ; the leaving our side in time of toil, sick- 
ness and trouble to join the ranks of our enemies against 
us, makes epochal days with us; so that we feel that we 
do not strain the truth when we call them our Geth- 
semanes, Gabbathas and Golgothas. 

Some people sour and go down under these fearful 
trials. But there are others who, after the life wound, 
look up with streaming eyes and blood-dripping heart 
to Him on the cross who trod the same lonely, bitter 
way, and take a new and better hold on life, because 
of a sweeter and truer conception and realization of 
existence. 

Well indeed, has this Disappointment served us, if 
in the trouble it brings, it at last finds us closer to 



202 A BOX OF TKEASUKE 

Christ, and fastens our gaze on Him rather than people, 
even though these people are our o^^n friends. 

We say in conclusion that there is one disappointment 
which never comes to us. That is, we are never mis- 
treated or ill treated by the Saviour. '^He will not 
forsake thee though all else should flee." He will never 
break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax. 
He will not give us over to the will of our enemies, much 
less join their ranks against us. He will not fail us. 
He has never deceived us and never will. He has never 
broken a single promise made to us, and never will. In 
all the history of Time he has never turned a soul away 
that came unto him. 

"March on, then, right boldly; 

The sea shall divide. 
And this be the token — 
No word he hath spoken 
Was ever yet broken, 

'The Lord will provide.' " 



XXIII 



DIFFERENCE IN HEARING 



We read that on a certain day in the life of Christ 
on earth, God the Father spoke from the heavens to Him, 
saying, "This is my beloved Son; hear ye Him." 

This voice brought the remarkable fact to light that 
there were four kinds of ears, as some would sa}^ or 
classes of hearers, as others would express it, in this 
crowd over which the sentence from Heaven sounded. 

One class, truly speaking, were no hearers at all. They 
were so deeply engaged in attending to earthly things, 
or were in such a soul deadened condition, that not a 
single word spoken by the Almighty just over their 
heads was recognized by them. God had made these 
same hearing faculties, but sin and disobedience and 
fleshly-mindedness had closed up the receptive organs of 
sound, and on the principle that the eyes of fish in the 
Mammoth Cave went out in the darkness; so the ears 
of moral beings from long inattention to the voice of 
God, ceased to hear at all, and while others heard and 
were blessed by messages from the skies, they were con- 
scious of nothing themselves. The great sky arched 

203 



204 A BOX OF TREASURE 

above them, full of peopled worlds, rippling with wings 
of angels, and glorious with the omnipresence of God, 
had become to them only a great, empty, silent con- 
cavity, a vast depth containing nothing but space. 

A second class of hearers that day, thought when 
the Father spoke, "that it thundered." 

Viewed in the light of the first class, this body of 
people, in the judgment of some, would be pronounced 
better off spiritually than the others. They heard some- 
thing, while the former set remarked nothing. 

This may be so, but when we stop to consider the 
m'oral perversion and blundering spiritual judgment, be- 
trayed in mistaking a blessed utterance of God, for a 
crash or boom of thunder, we fail to see where the 
character superiority comes in. 

Infidelity that has made the sayings and commands 
of the Father in the Old Testament to be pronunciations 
of folly and cruelty, belong to the second division of the 
assembly of which we are writing. When men like 
Hume and Ingersoll attack the divine benevolence and 
wisdom in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, they make the 
loving voice of God to be thunder in its harsh, pitiless, 
terrifying power. 

This class is further seen in those who attend great 
and genuine revival meetings, where the Word is 
preached with the Holy Ghost sent down from Heaven, 



DIFFERENCE IN HEAEING 205 

where conviction is deep^ conversions bright and blood 
red, and sanctifications thorough and snow white. But 
all in vain the work of God goes on before such people. 
Even as at Pentecost this second division mocked and 
likened the work of the Spirit in the disciples to a 
drunken debauch ; so to this day there are people in our 
religious gatherings in church and on camp grounds who 
pronounce the supernatural scenes before them to be- 
excitement, fanaticism, and some bordering on the sin 
against the Holy Ghost even call it tke work of the 
devil. 

God is speaking from the pulpit, and about the altar, 
but they see only the physical side, hear only the natural, 
which is necessarily in this world connected with the 
spiritual, and go away criticizing and condemning what 
they termed frenzy and lack of self-control. God spoke, 
and they said, "it thundered." 

A third class said of the voice that fell through the 
air, that an angel spoke to Christ. 

This division represents that part of religious and 
spiritual humanity that see, hear and attain to only a 
part of the truth and experience of Eedemption. They 
sweep ahead of the first two bodies we have mentioned, 
but do not go far enough. 

Many are content with morality. Others camp perma- 
nently in the realm of benevolence and humanitarianism. 



206 A BOX OF TREASURE 

Still others stop at justification, and others still realize 
that there is a second work of grace, yet never receive 
the blessing and the witness of the Holy Ghost to it in 
their souls. 

According to the Bible, as well as the evident lack 
of power in their lives, these individuals have halted too 
soon. They have come short of some fullness of knowl- 
edge, some satisfying experience, some great culminat- 
ing grace, that is not only bound to be felt by them- 
selves in their own hearts, but is patent to the spiritual, 
thoughtful observer who considers them. 

As in the case of the blind man under a first touch 
of the Saviour^s hand, they see, but not clearly and per- 
fectly. And as in Jacob's all night prayer wrestle, ac- 
cording to Micah the mysterious struggler seemed to 
be an angel; but holding on, at daybreak the celestial 
visitant was revealed to be the Lord ; so there are some 
in the spiritual life who never seem to get through into 
perfect light; never pray through to a daybreak sun- 
rise revelation of God in their souls, and to walk the 
road of life thereafter, settled, assured, triumphant, 
princes in the judgment of Heaven and having power 
with God and man. 

A fourth class of people on this wonderful morning 
in the Temple, heard correctly. They knew who was 
speaking, what was said, and to whom the words came. 



DIFFERENCE IN HEAEINQ 207 

They heard God^s voice, and in that fact proved them- 
selves to be of that saved number of whom the Saviour 
said, they hear His voice and know it. 

They become at once a typical class of all those who 
have had a fullness of waiting before God, and received 
the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ. 
They stayed with the Saviour until He gave them the 
second touch, and now "see perfectly .'' They did not 
tarry by pools, troubled once a year by an angeFs wing, 
but sought Him who made all the pools, and created 
all the angels, and He made them whole. They went 
to the Upper Eoom and tarried until the fire fell. They 
pray past the angel stage of Jacob's prayer, and get 
through to the day-break God Almighty revelation, when 
the Lord Speaks to him in the deep sense of the word 
face to face. 

Here is born a class that momentarily hear from 
headquarters. They walk and talk with God. Angel 
voices are good, but communion with the Almighty is 
far better. Wliy go down the stream for water when 
they have the Fountain Head? Why be sidetracked 
on a gift of the Spirit when they have the Spirit him- 
self in His fullness? Why be disturbed and confused 
about what men say, when they not only have heard 
but continue every moment to hear in the sweetest. 



208 A BOX OF TREASURE 

clearest, most heart-satisfying and life-strengthening way 
from God Himself? 

That all of the Lord's people do not know Him thus, 
does not spring from divine partiality, but from the 
failure of a number of His followers to observe the con- 
ditions for the obtainment of so great a grace. 

Just as in hearkening with the physical ear, there is a 
bent position of the body, the hand raised to the ear, 
and a fixed undeviating attention; so to hear satis- 
factorily from the Lord the body must be bowed, the 
hand of prayer raised and the whole soul fixed in the 
profoundest listening attitude, to hear what the Lord 
God will speak. 

It costs something to send a telegram a few hundred 
miles, but the price is far greater to get a cablegram 
across the sea to another country. In like manner, if 
one will compute the distance from this world, across 
the seas of blue space, islanded with stars, to the capital 
of the Universe, it will be seen that the full charge on 
the Heaven-gram has not been paid. It takes all we are 
and have and ever shall be and possess, to get our dis- 
patch through, hear from God, and receive full returns. 

There is also everything in "turning aside" and get- 
ting in character position to receive messages from 
Heaven. 

Moses was a very busy man, had numerous flocks 



DIFFERENCE IN HEARING 209 

and herds dependent on him for food and protection; 
but yearning to know more of, and to hear from God, 
he "turned aside" from his labors and everything, and 
saw and talked with Jehovah. After seeing the King 
of Heaven, he was well able to confront the monarchs 
of earth. 

Daniel had the care and affairs of a kingdom upon 
him, but he took time to leave everything, and by the 
side of the river Hiddekel, for six weeks, waited on God. 
We need not tell the reader how, at the end of that 
time, wireless messages dated in Heaven came upon 
him so thick and fast that he sank overpowered on 
his hands and knees ; such was the weight and glory of 
tidings that covered all time, and reached to the end 
of the world. 

Elijah, in the effort to get away from human presence, 
went first three days' journey into the desert, then a 
still longer trip into the wilderness, and afterward with 
mantle wrapped about his head, listened, and heard the 
'^still small voice." 

If people would study the spiritual significance of 
these things; would turn away from the vain j anglings 
of men, observe the conditions and pay the price of a 
full, perfect communion with God, then no longer would 
be seen and heard the strife and divisions in the courts 
of the Temple when God speaks. But unity would be 



210 A BOX OF TREASURE 

beheld and harmony would prevail. The Lord's sheep 
would hear His voice and recognize it. And all would 
know Him from the least to the greatest among His own. 
The world would be convinced, souls saved by the multi- 
tude, and God would be glorified. 



XXIV 



LESSONS FROM CRUCIFIXION 



When Paul said that he was crucified with Christ, 
he evidently referred to a religious experience very 
different from, and profounder as a work of grace than 
regeneration. That he was speaking of the second and 
subsequent work is evident from the figure he uses, 
and that which it stands for. 

In the first place it is well to recollect that the Word 
of God calls regeneration a birth. If it is a spiritual 
birth as Christ distinctly affirms it to be, then it cannot 
be a crucifixion for several reasons. 

One is the striking difference in the two figures. 
We could never understand spiritual things if God 
likened what is called our conversion, to such widely 
dissimilar and hopelessly irreconcilable occurrences an 
a birth and a death. A cradle and a cross are very 
different objects indeed to look upon ; and the sensations 
born of the two are about as wide apart as it is possible 
to conceive. Moreover, we do not remember ever to 
have seen a man get in a cradle, nor has any one on 
earth ever beheld a baby nailed to a cross. The cradle 

211 



212 A BOX OF TREASURE 

is too small for the man. The cross is too large for 
the child. 

A second reason for seeino^ the distinctive teachins: 
of the figure, is, that a human being has to be bom 
before he can be crucified. The Spirit calculated on our 
using the minds God gave us, and that we would re- 
member that birth precedes death, and so, when he was 
speaking of regeneration or the new life, he was referring 
to one thing, and when he was dwelling upon crucifixion, 
that most fearful of deaths, that he was teaching an- 
other and very different thing. Evidently the Spirit 
was presenting two very dissimilar spiritual facts and 
occurrences, when he made John say, "To them gave 
he power to become the sons of God, which were born," 
etc., etc., and later inspires Paul to write, "I am cru- 
cified with Christ." 

A third fact confirming the thought advanced in this 
chapter is seen in the peculiar suffering spoken of in 
the verse when the Apostle says he is crucified. 

The hasty reader sees the reference to pain, recalls 
certain moments of anguish and grief that he experienced 
in seeking pardon or salvation, and hastily concludes 
that it is another allusion to or description of regenera- 
tion and goes on his way. But let this be settled for- 
ever by the facts that regeneration or the New Birth 
are attended with birth throes, but the suffering Paul 



LESSONS FROM CEUCIFIXION 213 

mentions in Galatians, second chapter and twentieth 
verse, are death agonies. There is a vast difference be- 
tween birth pains and death pangs. The very character 
of the suffering is different. Then in one, a life is com- 
ing in, and in the other a life is gonig out of the world. 
Still again, with the birth of the child the suffering is 
mainly with the mother. And in harmony with this 
fact, the Bible declares that when Zion travails, sons 
and daughters will be born unto God. 

When it comes to death, the dying man has all the 
pain to himself. Crucifixion puts its every pang un- 
divided on the crucified. Some who are invincibly op- 
posed to a second instantaneous work of grace making 
the heart pure and holy, have endeavored to find proof 
of the growth theory, or a gradual work, in the fact 
that crucifixion itself is not a sudden, but a slow mode 
of death. 

Our first reply to this is that if they insist on this 
feature of the death of the cross, then we insist on their 
adhering to the figure throughout, and not be longer 
than six hours, or three days dying on the cross, or 
obtaining the blessing of holiness. 

Our second answer is that crucifixion in the sense 
of being nailed on the wood is one thing, and crucified 
in the sense of hanging dead on the ghastly tree is 
another. One has reference to a process, the other to 



214 A BOX OF TREASURE 

the end. One is beheld in the present tense, the other 
in the past. The process was over with Paul, and he 
says, "I am crucified." 

Mr. Wesley said that sanctification was a gradual 
and an instantaneous work. He did not mean to say 
that some obtained the grace by growth, over against 
another class who received it in a moment. Indeed, 
he said he never knew one to obtain the blessing by the 
first method. He simply taught that man^s part in the 
matter was a gradual approach, but the work itself, the 
divine part was instantaneous. 

So, just as in crucifixion, there is a dying, and then 
a death; the limp, unconscious form hanging on the 
cross declaring that the work is over and done ; so in 
sanctification we behold on the man's side a painful 
progress, coming to and ending at last in a moment 
where God meets the perfectly devoted and consecrated 
soul, the fire falls, the pangs end, the old man hangs 
dead, and the blessed and blissful Christian can cry, 
"I am crucified!" 

Just as we behold the victim nailed to the cross writh- 
ing and twisting in agony for hours, and then suddenly 
cease from all motion and suffering, having entered upon 
the rest of death; so we can see, and do see around 
us to-day in our meetings, Christians passing through 
anguish analogous to that of crucifixion, and then sud- 



LESSONS FROM CRUCIFIXION 215 

denly at the altar or elsewhere find an instantaneous 
relief and deliverance, as sweet as it was sudden, and 
as abiding as it is profound. Groans cease, tears are 
wiped away, the cramped, kneeling posture is given up, 
while with a leap of joy they are on their feet with 
shining face and lips overflowing with happy laughter 
or shouts of joy. The long, weary struggle is over, and 
they have entered into the rest that remaineth for the 
people of God. 

These things being so, how perfectly unphilosophical, 
unnatural and unscriptural it is to hear preachers and 
teachers declaring to sanctified people that there are 
other deaths and "deeper deaths" awaiting them. He 
who proclaims so unreasonable and absurd a doctrine 
can never have known the crucifixion that Paul speaks 
of in Galatians, or the death of the old man that so 
many of God's people feel to have taken place in their 
own individual case at the end of a perfect consecration, 
and implicit faith in the Blood of Christ to cleanse 
from all sin. 

We suspect that such teachers never knew the death 
of the cross. They were hung up on gum elastic bands 
and not on nails. They were tied to the beams with 
ribbons and not transfixed with spikes. They had sooth- 
ing touches on the head and not thorns driven in the 
brow. They had sparkling water given at every sigh, 



216 A BOX OF TREASURE 

and not vinegar and then gall in the midst of bitter 
cries. The cross was not upright with them, but slanted 
so as to keep the weight of the whole man off from the 
suffering members. In fact, the cross must have been 
a lounge. And the old man did not die, but had a fit. 

This being so, of course such people must teach a 
deeper death, for they still feel something tremendously 
alive in them. 

But how they discount the blessing of sanctification 
in doing this. How in addition to that, do they take 
the old-time attractiveness from it as the perfect rest, 
the peace that passeth understanding, the joy unutter- 
able and full of glory, the sweet perfection to which we 
were urged to come as the culminating as well as the 
ultimate grace of the child of God in this life. With 
such a pure heart filled with perfect love we were told 
we were in condition to see God. We had the white 
garment for the wedding, we even rested on the word 
that "it is appointed unto men once to die,'^ and that 
in the destruction of inbred sin, the sting of death itself 
was gone, and our own personal demise would rather 
be a happy departure than a painful dissolution. When 
lo ! these teachers tell us that sanctification is a series of 
deaths; that there are "deeper deaths" all along the 
Christian journey until the last breath is drawn, and the 
gates of the tomb receive us. 



LESSONS FROM CRUCIFIXION 217 

Such a view makes the holiness evangelist the most 
remarkable of all undertakers, as he is engaged in re- 
peated burials of the same man. It makes sanctification 
the most unattractive and undesirable of experiences, 
as it introduces us to undying death agonies, and deaths 
that cannot be counted, and each one "deeper" than its 
predecessor. 

It is true that Paul said, "I die daily;" but a mere 
glance at the chapter in which the words occur, show 
that he was making no reference whatever to sin. He 
was speaking of a martyrdom that might happen to 
him any day. He taught that the sin nature could and 
should die once for all, while he Paul through the 
power of such men as Herod, Felix, Festus and Caesar 
might die any day. 

The same Paul also wrote that he kept his body under 
and brought it into subjection. But he did not say 
that he kept the body of sin in subjection. There is a 
vast difference between a human body that God made, 
and "the body of sin" that the devil manufactured. 
The former is to be kept under; the latter is to be de- 
stroyed. The apostle is perfectly clear in his presenta- 
tion of these two utterly distinct facts. 

So all these thoughts strengthen the conclusion that 
there cannot be a "deeper death" in the spiritual life — 
unless we go to hell. 



218 A BOX OF TREASURE 

After the blessing of entire sanctification, we may die 
daily in the sense of humiliations, mortifications, affronts, 
revilings, slanders and all kinds of private cuts and 
public shame, but the old man of sin dies once. Not 
by section and piecemeal, but all over. The real cruci- 
fixion is a marvellous quieter, settler and deadener. He 
who can say with Paul, ^'1 am crucified," makes no an- 
nouncement for future funerals of the old man. 



XXV 

PREACHING^ THE GREAT INSTRUMENTALITY OF 
SALVATION 

God has ordained preaching as the great potential 
instnunentality of recovering the world. The Bible de- 
clares that it has pleased God to save the world by the 
foolishness of preaching. It does not say foolish preach- 
ing, but the foolishness of preaching. That is, in the 
judgment and according to the wisdom of this planet 
God's plan of sending men to instruct, warn, rebuke, 
exhort and preach that the race may be saved and sancti- 
fied, looks like a silly, senseless undertaking and is a 
great loss of time, talent, labor and money. 

No one in his senses would underrate the necessity, 
value and power of prayer, but we should none the less 
properly relate the means of grace to each other, and 
not contradict God who has exalted preaching to the 
first rank, and declares it is His chosen method, the 
Sword of His right hand for producing conviction, mov- 
ing men, drawing them to the point of surrender and 
consecration, and so obtaining pardon and holiness. 

Let the reader recall the revivals of the present and 
219 



220 A BOX OF TREASURE 

past and see if it was not the preaching which drew 
the crowd, cut down into hearts, illumined the mind, 
convinced the understanding, swept people to the altar 
and actually started the praying. 

It is because of the high honor and responsible office 
God has given to preaching, that we so jealously notice 
every encroachment upon it, and cry out against every 
slur and indignity put upon it. 

It is God's method of saving the world, and who 
could doubt for an instant what a tremendous revival, 
what a tide of salvation would sweep the entire nation 
and continent if right preaching could be poured forth 
from every pulpit in the land. 

So well does the Devil know of this power that his 
constant attack is on the pulpit in some way. The 
assaults are many and various, and this very per- 
sistency of evil movements against preacher and preach- 
ing is alone sufficient to impress most profoundly and 
anxiously every thoughtful mind. 

One attack is to put men in the pulpit who were never 
called by the Holy Ghost to declare the Gospel. 

No man should take this honor upon himself, Paul 
states, except he who is called to it as Aaron was to 
his ministry. All men then thus entering the sacred 
desk come not in by the door, but the Saviour says 
climbed in some other way, and He adds, are thieves 



PREACHING 221 

and robbers. Such men existed in His day; abounded 
in Wesley's time; and still are to be met in great num- 
bers in the Established Church of England. Not a 
few are in our own so-called evangelical churches. 
Vanderbilt University is putting a lot of such uncon- 
verted and uncalled men into the Southern Methodist 
ministry as the years roll by. 

All such pulpit occupiers are interlopers, and Christ 
brands them thieves and robbers, God cannot bless them. 
Nor can they without the Holy Spirit preach truly and 
really and properly the book of books given us by the 
Holy Ghost. 

So we see how the Word of God can be nullified and 
actually prevented by a band of hirelings as the Saviour 
called them, men who without the Spirit and without 
His call to wield the Sword of the Spirit, which is the 
Word of God, certainly cannot do so. 

And here again comes a trouble; that the world has 
been taught to regard their little sermonettes, essays, 
and brief literary talks as preaching. Who wonders at 
men's contempt for such ministrations when spiritual 
and supernatural results never appear? 

A second attack on preaching is made by the ad- 
versary in the effort to get the preacher to sin and 
backslide so that he will not have the heart to deliver 



222 A BOX OP TREASURE 

the whole Word, and have no fire, energy or unction to 
preach any part of it. 

It is needless to say that nothing ever happens in the 
line of conviction and salvation in such congregations 
and churches. There are no doubt, earnest prayers 
going up from the pew, but the pulpit gun, the gospel 
cannon which God has selected and brought forth to 
win the battle is silent, and so the altar is empty, the 
audience listless and dead, and Hell scores another vic- 
tory in shutting off the message which alone could 
win the day. 

A third attack on preaching is seen in cutting Grod's 
true preacher down in the time that should be .given 
him in public worship. Fully three-quarters of the hour 
that should be devoted to the Gospel message is relegated 
to or has been usurped by a befeathered, beribboned, 
bejeweled, bepowdered and begiggling choir who solo 
and duet, and triet and quaver and semi-quaver and 
demi-semi-quaver, and hemi-demi-semi-quaver, and all 
that time worse than nothing has been presented to the 
eyes, ears and hearts of the people. 

There are good men in the pastorate to-day who are 
thus shut off and out. Some protest in vain, some 
give up in despair. Both alike know that nothing can 
be done in a mere handbreadth of time, and above all, 
when the Holy Ghost plan has been ignored, and the 



PREACHINa 223 

Word of God discounted, belittled, set aside and re- 
garded as a nuisance to be endured for a quarter of an 
hour, and never over thirty minutes. 

A fourth attack on preaching *is made by a deliberate, 
premeditated effort on the part of certain leaders (not 
preachers) and some singers to arouse a storm of en- 
thusiasm, and create a wave of religious excitement and 
feeling vrhich runs so high that handling the Word be- 
comes impossible. 

No one doubts a moment, the right of the Holy Ghost 
to come upon a meeting, change its course, stop the 
sermon or do anything else He sees fit to do. Though 
we must aflBrm that the Spirit is not likely, when He 
has right preaching and true preachers on hand, to set 
aside the very instrument He has chosen to bring 
conviction and salvation to the people. We certainly 
would not be surprised if He headed off some kind 
of so-called preaching, but hardly that which pleases 
Him and which He desires the people to hear. 

Moreover, all grant that the Spirit has a right to fall 
on true messages and send such tides of glory over the 
congregation that God alone is heard, felt and thought 
about. 

The objection urged is against the deliberate, whooped- 
up excitement which as all who are experienced in 
large religious gatherings well know can easily be done, 



224 A BOX OF TREASURE 

and after all nothing be done. There are excitable 
natures to begin with, and emotional individuals, and 
also good people who are set like hair-triggers. All 
that is needed is a hymn like "Meet Me There" and 
"I Saw the Moonlight on My Mother's Grave/' a few 
whoops, a jump or two, and the whole thing is off on 
natural, sympathetic and even fleshly lines, and once 
more the Word of God has been prevented from being 
delivered. 

It is noticeable by the most spiritual and experienced 
of evangelists that when the "rapture" which was 
"worked up" and did not "fall suddenly from the skies," 
is over, and used up; that it leaves the meeting in a 
collapsed and worse condition. The sermon seems to 
fall flat, the audience appears to be switched off from 
the main line, and the workers are "wind blown." They 
cannot do much in the battle around the altar, as they 
exhausted themselves on a skirmish before the real con- 
flict began. They are like the man who ran an hundred 
yards to jump a ditch, but when he reached it he was 
so tired that he could not jump at all and had to sit 
down and rest. 

So deeply impressed are some evangelists with this 
mistake that they are careful to keep the opening of 
each meeting in their own hands, select hymns of 
solemn, convicting power, and so head off the hoop-la 



PEEACHINa 225 

element, that would ignore preparatory conditions, ■would 
make the spiritual clock hit twelve when it is not yet 
nine o'clock, and actually get ahead of God. While 
there are singers v/ho so deliberately try to work up 
this religious furor and evanescent gush that they have 
lost scores of good calls from those who love them per- 
sonally, but deplore their method of discounting, set- 
ting aside and silencing the AVord of God, which is 
God's chosen instrument to win the Gospel battle. 

There are numerous other attacks made on the Word 
in the form of "The Tongue Movement;" overdrawn 
Testimony Meetings in our camps; and other mistaken 
as well as deplorable things which virtually sheath the 
Sword of the Spirit in a scabbard and substitutes lec- 
tures, social gatherings and lollypop in general for the 
mighty truth of God which He said should be preached 
with the Holy Ghost sent down from Heaven. 

We honor and observe every means of grace, but when 
we see God placing preaching (real, true preaching) 
at the head of the line, and hear Him declaring that it 
is His chosen and ordained instrument and agency of 
spreading truth and salvation over the world, we can 
but view with suspicion any thing, person or movement 
which discounts, belittles, or would in any way set it 
aside. 

Christ's preaching brought the disciples to the Upper 



226 A BOX OF TREASURE 

Eoom to obtain the Baptism with the Holy Ghost. 
Peter's preaching, not his prayers, led three thousand 
souls to God on the morning of Pentecost. The dis- 
ciples after Herod's persecution ^Vent everywhere 
preaching the Gospel," and saw marvellous results. 
Luther's preaching moved Europe and sent a revival 
wave in every direction. Wesley's and Whitefield's 
preaching swept England and America with a tide of 
salvation. And Holiness preaching is securing victory 
for Christ and Full Salvation all over the land. 

No wonder that Asbury said to his preachers, preach 
holiness in every sermon. No wonder that pastors and 
evangelists backslide who cease to declare and urge this 
great salvation of God. No wonder the fire of Heaven 
falls when its true follower wields the Sword of the 
Spirit and holds up an uttermost salvation to all through 
the Blood of the Son of God. 

That the will of God might be done, and the hum&n 
race redeemed, it would be well indeed if the harangue 
of unconverted men; and the sermonizing of Spirit- 
forsaken men; and lecturing; and the unintelligible 
bawling and squalling of worldly choirs; and whooped 
up enthusiasm; and every other sham and counterfeit, 
introduced by men and devils to take the place of Holy 
Ghost preaching, be done away with now and forever. 

Christ has chosen the weapon, ordered the line of 



PREACHING 227 

march, set the battle in array, and revealed the heavenly 
plan in the divine commission. We can hardly improve 
on it. "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel 
to every creature.^' And, "ho, I am with you alway 
even unto the end of the world." 



XXVI 



AN AURICULAR CUSPIDOR 



We are taught in the Bible that the human body is the 
Temple of God, and that dedicated to Him it should be 
kept from all defilement; otherwise it would meet with 
the divine judgment and destruction. 

In the teaching of consecration we are told to put 
every member on the altar. The idea being that any 
part not devoted to God would be the cause of the un- 
doing and ruin of the complete man, soul and body. 

Much history of individuals is given in Scripture to 
bring out this truth, that a single member of the physical 
man withheld from the rightful claim of the Lord, and 
misdirected in lines of selfishness and sin, will be certain 
to bring trouble, misfortune, calamity, and unless re- 
pented of, destruction to the man himself. 

The hair of Absalom, the foot of Asahel, the tongue 
of Shimei, the eye of David, were prolific of misery 
and death to their owners. The argument made and 
conclusion drawn from these and many other instances 
in the Word of God, is that the whole man has to be 
given to God if that being would not be lost ; that per- 

228 



AN AURICULAE CUSPIDOR 229 

feet consecration is the price and condition of spiritual 
safety on earth and entrance into heaven at last. 

This we doubt not is the reason that Job said that 
he had made a covenant with his eye, while people 
to-day seeking holiness enumerate physical members as 
well as spiritual faculties and say I lay hands, feet, 
eyes, lips, tongue and all on the altar. 

It is well known to any Bible student how much 
stress is laid in Holy Writ on the devotement of the 
tongue to God. How many warnings are given as to 
its wrong use, what fearful descriptions of its power 
to injure and destroy, while the solemn statement is 
made that it sets on fire, and is itself set on fire of hell. 

In the fifteenth Psalm we are given a list of those 
who cannot enter heaven, and among them we find men- 
tioned the person "who taketh up a reproach against 
his neighbor." He did not originate the accusation or 
slander, but simply repeated it, handed it around, and 
kept it going. He has not used his tongue to ask the 
villified or maligned individual if the charge was true, 
but falling into the line of detraction with a decided 
relish, helped the libel and falsehood on its way. 

Such a person with such a tongue, God says, cannot 
enter heaven. 

Because of these grave perversions of the lips, 
preachers have much to say in the pulpit against un- 



230 A BOX or TREASURE 

ruly speech. And yet there is another organ of the 
body located very close to the tongue, called the ear, 
and whose misuse leads to the most direful spiritual 
calamities, about which we hear little or nothing in 
the way of warning, rebuke and proper instruction. 

Christ recognizes the marvellous power for evil of 
this member in the words "Take heed what ye hear'' 
and "Take heed how ye hear." 

From what we can read in the Bible and see in life, 
it is as essential to guard the ear as the eye, to lay the 
former on the altar as the latter. 

One thing is certain, and that is if we do not listen 
to a reproach against a neighbor, we certainly would 
have nothing to repeat with the tongue. So the ear 
seems to get the tongue into the very trouble mentioned 
in the fifteenth psalm. 

There seems to be two injunctions that might well 
cover most of our cases. 

One is to take heed how we hear. 

We owe it to God, to man and our own souls to listen 
properly and in the right spirit to what is said to us. 

No one can estimate the amount of trouble and misery 
that has come upon human beings through faulty atten- 
tion and a consequent incorrect report of what was de- 
clared to have been said. Who can number the preachers 
whose sermons have thus been twisted out of all shape. 



AN- AURICULAR CUSPIDOR 231 

Wliile statements made in the social and family life were 
so distorted through some failure to grasp the whole' 
utterance as to bring about life-time separation and even 
death itself. 

Another injunction is to take heed what we hear, 

It is the ignoring of this most wise commandment 
that prostitutes this exalted member of the body and 
lowers it to an environment of degradation and to 
realms of infamy. In turn it revenges itself on the 
soul, by dragging the spirit down to breathe the same 
foul atmosphere, walk by the identical cess pools, and 
sink finally in the mud-wallows of iniquity. 

It is wonderful the effect produced upon the heart 
within, by what we listen to on the outside. Infidelity 
leaves its dark doubts, impurity its stains, and error 
and untruth precipitates a deposit which results in 
damaged faith, warped character, and a wrong life. 

Where is the victim who can escape blame for this 
inward injury, when it was so evidently in his power 
to refuse to hear, and to move entirely away from the 
blighting utterances of such a speaker? 

The well formed ear is a beautiful organ, and to 
behold such a handsome and remarkable member not 
only misused as mentioned, but abused, dishonored, de- 
graded, and actually made to serve the purpose of a 



232 A BOX OF TREASURE 

spittoon is a thought and fact almost too horrible and 
sickening for words. 

A spittoon is a receptacle for the expectoration of 
mouths. Saliva stained and discolored with snuff and 
tobacco and scented with alcohol is ejected copiously into 
the wood, iron or stone jar. Moreover not only any- 
thing can be shot into it, but anybody can use it. Its 
condition soon becomes too disgusting for verbal ex- 
pression. 

Now to think that the human ear, which can be and 
should be devoted to the hearing of that which exalts, 
uplifts, purifies and saves, is beheld a receptacle for the 
profanity, obscenity, hatred, malice, slander and lying 
going on all around, and its owner v/illing thus to 
prostitute and degrade the God-given faculty and instru- 
ment is as horrible and disgusting a fact in the character 
realm, as the full spittoon is a nauseous and detestable 
object of vision in the material world. 

Such a degenerate ear not only secures all scandal, 
slander and filth that is being expectorated by human 
mouths, but it allows every malicious spitter to have 
that organ as a cuspidor. 

Of course we do not mean that we cannot listen to 
grave, distressing charges against people who have erred 
and are guilty. This would be the height of folly and 
would put judge, jury and newspaper reporters out of 



AN AURICULAR CUSPIDOR 233 

work. This also would consign the church itself to a 
state of ignorance, and place as well as infliction upon 
it of wrong and sinful conduct that should not be 
thought of a single moment. Its integrity and purity 
alike demand a proper hearkening to and disposal of 
matters pertaining to its spiritual welfare as well as 
right standing before the outside world. 

The evil we are writing against is the debasing of a 
noble organ to the level, as well as purpose, of a spittoon. 
The open, ready, listening to every declaration, sling, 
fling, innuendo, as well as deliberate slander of people, 
whether they be of the church or even of the world. 

We once had a holiness man to tell us that he took 
a certain abusive and scurrillous paper to see what was 
being said about the various brethren. We could but 
marvel as he spoke as to where the difference came in 
between the mud-flinging editors of that journal and 
the individual before us who with eager eyes read all 
its insinuations and accusations. As he evidently en- 
joyed what they relished; and devoured what they had 
previously masticated, we felt that they were not only 
of the same tribe, but he was on still a lower plane than 
the parties he was reading after. 

In like manner we fail to see any difference between 
the backbiter and the individual who listens with en- 
joyment to the backbiting. The one who takes up a re- 



234 A BOX OF TREASURE 

proach against his neighbor, and the person who by 
sympathetic appreciative listening really endorses the 
tale bearer, and so puts himself on the same plane and 
in the same rank with a character whom God declares 
cannot enter His tabernacle or dwell in His holy hill. 

The lips of the tobacco spitter and flaring mouth of 
a spittoon bear a remarkable likeness to each other 
in smell, stain, color and repulsive appearance. And so 
between the ready circulator of scandal, and the quick 
interested listener to slander there is a similarity in 
certain moral features, an unmistakable family likeness 
as to character that we do not doubt an instant, that the 
same doom God pronounces on one He utters against 
the other; and the celestial gate which is shut to the 
former is as certainly closed upon the latter. 

We all observe how quickly a man dodges, swerves 
and even runs to save his clothes and body from bilge 
and slop thrown out of a window above or near him. 
How much more quickly should he avoid the flinging or 
pouring forth from malicious, falsifying mouths of a 
froth spawn and venom which God tells us has had its 
inspiration and source from the depths of the Bottom- 
less Abyss. 

The question is, how can one with proper regard 
for others, and real respect for himself, not only lend 
his ear to every scandal spitter in the land who ap- 



AN AURICULAR CUSPIDOR 235' 

proaches him, but consents to hold the auricle spittoon 
himself, while the tattler and slanderer expectorates. 

If it was possible to take flashlight charactergraphs, 
the invention would reveal many a circle and group on 
the street and in the hotel office, where most of the 
human figures would be seen sporting huge cuspidors 
on the sides of their heads instead of ears, while others 
ejected muddy, discolored streams of language from 
their mouths towards the six foot receptacles before 
them and so expertly was the thing done on both sides 
that not a single drop fell on the ground. 

We wonder if the person who is likely to be offended 
at this figure, may not have done repeatedly what we 
are writing about, and furnished just such receivers for 
gossip, slander and misrepresentation as we have de- 
scribed. 

Truly it would be well for the ^orld and better for 
us all if the ear could be exalted from the spittoon 
relation and changed into a great receiver and re- 
corder of noble utterances, lofty sentiment, and splendid 
achievements, gleaned from every realm; of ennobling 
knowledge, and good spoken of man and God rather 
than evil of our brother fellow traveler to eternity, or 
falsehood of Him who made us, redeemed us and over- 
flowed our hearts and lives with every good and per- 
fect gift from both the material and spiritual world. 



236 A BOX or treasure 

With such a capital of mind and heart wealth, a 
man could never be poor in the true sense of the word, 
but would make others rich; need never be unhappy or 
unemployed, but become a blessing to every one and at 
all times. 

There would be no exclusion from the Holy Hill of 
a character like this : but all such redeemed beings would 
constitute the nobility of Heaven; be celestial princes; 
God's sons and daughters; and look marvellously like 
Him on the Throne who while on earth did good to the 
children of men, and who lifted countless thousands 
from the mire and pit into which they had fallen, 
and never pulled a single one down. 



XXYII 



MOULTING AND SHEDDING 



I notice that birds have a way of moulting their 
plumage without outside assistance. Birds know that 
when men begin to pull their feathers out, the next 
thing on the program is that they will be roasted. Men 
are beginning to discover in these days what the birds 
all along knew, that pulling and roasting come very 
close together. 

I observe also that the trees shed their leaves of their 
own accord. It would be too big an undertaking for 
men to go around with baskets and ladders and try 
to strip the forests. Nature has its season when, with 
the stoppage of the flow of sap, and the blowing of 
autumn winds the leaves come whirling down in a 
golden shower. And it was done so gently, quietly, 
thoroughly and satisfactorily! 

In like manner we have to shed things. "We started 
the spiritual life by leaving off our actual sins. Later 
we got rid of the Old Man. Since then we cannot 
number the wrong ideas, unwise methods, foolish no- 
tions, hasty conclusions and improper ways of approach- 

237 



238 A BOX OF TREASURE 

ing and dealing with men we have dropped. No bird 
ever moulted like we have done. No tree has ever out- 
stripped us in the shedding business. 

All that most honest people want is a season of light 
and grace, and behold the sap which nourished error 
and mistake ceases to flow, and while a gentle wind 
from heaven stirs the soul, the blunders, ignorance, 
prejudices, false ideas, follies, nonsense and tomfool- 
eries of other years go whirling like yellow leaves to 
the ground. 

One thing we shed as a young preacher was a rattan. 
No one told us not to carry it, but some kind of sap 
quit flowing as we got nearer to God, and the little 
walking cane shed itself. 

After that we moulted a beaver hat. No one men- 
tioned the remarkable harmony existing in the juxta- 
position of two equally hollow spheres, and no one 
knocked the remarkable headpiece away from the self- 
satisfied countenance which it surmounted. This would 
have been to have secured a longer stay. Instead of that 
a season of grace came, and in that autumn of sober 
reflection with recollections of the poverty and lowliness 
of the Saviour, a wind blowing softly from the 
skies lifted the hat, and it fluttered out of sight and 
mind as the leaves of other years have departed and 
are forg^otten. 



MOULTING AND SHEDDING 239 

Then came the shedding of witty speeches perpetrated 
while leading a testimony meeting. 

The happy repartee, the quick turn of thought upon 
another person, which brought a laugh from the au- 
dience, looked well, scored an intellectual victory, and 
was undertaken with a kind and loving heart; but the 
eight of mortified servants of God, old followers of the 
Cross almost snubbed into silence, and gray-haired and 
simple-hearted people wounded to the quick at the 
amusement brought upon them — this sight was soon 
adequate and amply suflBcient to put an end to the 
practice forever. 

Once in a meeting a brother stood up and quoted 
for his testimony, "The cleansing stream, I see, I see !" 
and sat down. We replied, "There is something better 
than seeing the stream of cleansing, and that is being 
in it." The pained look of the brother went to our 
heart, as we fear our words had gone to his. Anyhow, 
we did some more "shedding'^ that day, and determined 
to be more careful and tender from that hour forward. 

We question much whether young people should be 
put forward to lead the testimony service of a camp- 
meeting; especially if they aspire to shine instead of 
lead, and crave to be witty and even funny at the ex- 
pense of gray-haired men and women of God who were 
in the service of Heaven before the joking, jesting, 



240 A BOX OF TEEASUEE 

amusing, brilliant, talkative leader was born into the 
world. 

It takes religion, sense, tact, and a kind, loving, con- 
siderate heart to make a good leader of a testimony 
meeting. So when we see pertness taking the place of 
piety, and hnmor usurping the station of love, we feel 
like praying: 

"Lord, let the seasons of grace roll on; stop the sap; 
befrost the leaf; and send a wind from heaven to strip 
from us all wrong foliage and clothe us instead with 
leaves that are full of healing and load us down with 
the fruits of the Spirit for which men are hungry and 
starving all over the land.'^ 

^Ye know of three different cases, where one preacher 
thinking that another was making grave lifetime mis- 
takes, wrote a warm letter of warning ; but as it proved 
the communication was much warmer than the writer 
intended. It blistered and burned! Then came in 
reply an outcry of pain and of protest from the victim, 
whereupon two of the parties went into the moulting 
business. This time it was the gridiron epistle that was 
dropped. We mean by the gridiron epistle, a letter 
which is written in such a spirit and style that its hard, 
unbending lines and high temperature most forcibly re- 
mind one of that implement of the kitchen on which 
the process of broiling takes place. 



MOULTING AND SHEDDING 241 

Time would fail to tell of what, and how much is 
quietly dropped, or vigorously flung off in the course of 
years from the boughs and branches of a healthy Chris- 
tian life. They are not sins, but are unwise sayings 
and doings, wrong conceptions of doctrine, false ideas 
of duty, mannerisms, improprieties, eccentricities, ex- 
travagances — in a word, things that, like fungus growth, 
need to be cut off, or, like the frosted leaf, ought to 
be shed quickly and blown utterly away. 

Happy for the frost which falls with killing power 
on certain fruits and leaves that we have beheld hang- 
ing on to certain lives. And truly that strong, autumnal 
gale from Heaven cannot blow too soon which shall 
strip from us and bear away the needless, the super- 
fluous, the unsightly, the burdensome and the hurtful, 
and leave us open for a foliage and fruitage which shall 
be honored of God, and blessed to the present and ever- 
lasting good of men. 



XXVIII 



THE EFFECT OF DISTANCE 



It is well known that remoteness has the power of 
softening and beautifying many objects in nature, and 
also when applied to individual character and life work, 
works an equally striking charm, attractiveness and 
potent spell. 

But it is also equally true that distance is decidedly 
against our seeing and knowing correctly the history 
as well as character of men. There are heart victories 
of the most tremendous nature that the world never 
knows anything about. There is a patient suffering, a 
sacrifice of life, a bearing of others' burdens that takes 
place in many an individual existence of which the mul- 
titude hurrying by occupied with itself has no knowledge. 
Such an existence from its very nature is removed, 
and then the world is distant after another order, and 
so the peculiarly tried and overburdened man goes on 
his unrecognized way to the grave and the Judgment. 

As we have brooded over the sad as well as cruel mis- 
takes made in life through the fact and power of dis- 
tance in some form, we have been compelled to say alas 

242 



EFFECT OF DISTANCE 243 

for it ! Would that something might happen or could 
be done, that drawing people nearer, would end this 
most prolific cause of human suffering and unhappiness. 

There is such a thing as territorial distance. 

This separates the nations, and has caused prejudices, 
antipathies, reprisals and wars beyond number. 

This is still at work separating North from South, 
dividing England from Ireland, and isolating one con- 
tinent from another. 

Truly the Fall is great, and Sin a fearful thing when 
through its effect, a few miles of earth and water makes 
it impossible to be kind or even just to one another, 
when a New Englander bristles at the very name of 
South Carolina, and honor cannot be done to a great 
statesman and a polished gentleman because his name 
was Jefferson Davis and he lived in Mississippi. 

And what shall we say if entire sanctification or per- 
fect love cannot remove this spirit? 

Sometimes the territorial distance is only a side or 
back yard, and lo! we have to behold, though on a 
smaller scale, the same prejudices, antipathies, reprisals 
and going to war with each other. 

We know of a family feud in Mississippi that has 
lasted over fifty years, and yet both households are re- 
fined, cultured and very lovely in many particulars. But 
a little strip of earth only a few miles wide has utterly 



244 A BOX OF TREASURE 

prevented the homes in question from knowing and 
loving each other. 

Then there is the creed and ecclesiastical distance. 

Here is a separation broader than the Atlantic, and 
stormier than its big billows and winds. Members of 
different denominatiom if they only knew each other 
would be filled with love and admiration, yet separated 
by non-essential doctrines, shun each other as if they 
possessed the black plague or leprosy. 

Convicted at a Gospel meeting of another church 
they refuse to seek conversion or sanctification at the 
strange altar, because forsooth it is not their meeting 
house. They are even surprised and sometimes indig- 
nant that they should be asked to seek the Lord at a 
Methodist or Full Salvation revival. Why, I am a 
Catholic or Episcopalian or a Presbyterian! they say, 
as if that completely released them from the moral 
obligation of the truth or the conviction of the Holy 
Spirit. 

They might with equal propriety and wisdom have 
gone on and said, why the shingles on the roof are not 
those I have been worshipping under, and your windows 
are plain and ours are stained, and our church building 
cost more than yours. 

We do not doubt that the devils in hell indulge in 
roars of laughter at our poor narrow headed, shallow 



EFFECT OF DISTANCE 245 

hearted, spirit blinded human race as seen here and 
there walled in and fortified against each other through 
sectarian and denominational misconception of Chris- 
tianity. 

Some cannot enjoy a sermon unless the preacher 
wears a garb that looks like a nightrobe. Others must 
have a ritual where they rise up and sit down in worship 
a great deal. Still others will not allow another Chris- 
tian to partake with them of the Lord's supper because 
the water of baptism was applied to the body instead 
of the body being applied to the water. Then comes 
the minor tribes of No-Hog Meat, No-Breakfast, No- 
Necktie, Postum Coffee, Jumpers, Eollers, Third Bless- 
ingers. Tongues and Walkers-Around-With-Shut-Eyes. 

Meantime not to take up with the idiosyncrasy of each 
one of these movements is to fall under its reproof 
and ban; and Blood washed. Spirit filled, God accepted 
and heaven honored men are set aside, cast off and struck 
at because of their refusal to endorse and press some doc- 
trine, form or custom that is perfectly non-essential to 
happiness, usefulness and salvation., 

A little brick wall, or plank partition seems as power- 
ful to prevent people from knowing and loving each 
other as a Himalayan range of mountains twenty 
thousand feet high, a Desert of Sahara a thousand miles 



246 A BOX OF TREASURE 

wide, or a vast Pacific ocean seven thousand miles from 
shore to shore. 

A third kind of distance between men is that of 
temperament. 

It hardly needs any argument to convince the thought- 
ful, observant man of the extreme difficulty of getting 
human beings of the nervous, bilious, sanguine, or melan- 
choly order of constitution to understand and appre- 
ciate each other. 

It is this dissimilarity which occasions such widely 
different views and oscillating see-saw speeches in Con- 
gress, State Legislatures and the various ecclesiastical 
bodies knoTMi as Synod, Council, Convention and Con- 
ference. 

Each representative ot the psychically unlike declares 
that the opinions and proceedings of the other will ruin 
church and country. Something in the mental character 
construction has thrown up Alps, Appenines, and 
Mediterraneans between them, and they are foreigners to 
one another, and again we have to behold antipathies, 
reprisals and wars. 

Well for the race that Christ was the Son of Man 
in the deepest, broadest, truest respect; that He pos- 
sessed all the temperaments in a happy balancing power 
BO that He sympathizes with all, while everybody can 



EFFECT OF DISTANCE 247 

come to Him knowing that He understands them and 
that perfectly. 

A fourth kind of distance that divides men is found in 
utter difference of life history and experience. 

We once heard a prominent minister say in enumerat- 
ing the blessings which filled his life that he found it 
hard to sympathize with a number of his brethren who 
had walked ways of bereavement, sorrow, trial and suf- 
fering that were unknown to himself. He had never 
lost a child ; all were living. He had never been called 
to stand by the coflSn of his wife. He possessed an 
ideal home. His household was devoted to him. He had 
a number of rich relatives and devoted friends whose 
purses were open to him. Then there was property 
in the immediate household. 

As he counted off these temporal and beautiful mercies, 
and showed up the Edenic setting of his peculiarly 
eheltered and favored life, we could well understand 
why he could not understand, nor feel for, nor do justice 
to other men whom he called his brethren. 

Once when a young pastor in New Orleans, with a 
heart bowed down and almost broken with a combina- 
tion of perplexities, cares and troubles, we were about 
taking a street car to visit one of the leading bishops 
of our church and confide to him a number of painful, 
delicate and unbearable things; when we were as sud- 



248 A BOX OF TREASUEE 

denly arrested by the divine touch and voice as if a 
friend had laid his hand upon our shoulder and spoke 
in our ear. 

The inward voice, the quick, deep, vivid impression 
was "Do not go to him." 

Another instant and just as clear was a direction and 
leading to visit an elderly lady of sixty, who had been 
through every kind of sorrow and was the saintliest 
woman in the city. 

Both voices and touches were from God. Time 
thoroughly proved it. The man high in official capacity 
as he was could never have understood the heart and 
life history of the young preacher. The woman on the 
other hand could and did comprehend the goaded, per- 
plexed and burdened life, spoke the right word, gave 
the true counsel and comfort, and undoubtedly de- 
livered a soul at one of the great crises which comes 
into the lives of so many if not all the children of men. 

These are not all of the causes of the separation and 
mutual misunderstanding of good people. But as natural 
barriers keep the nations apart, and they know very 
little of each other, so the ignorance is about as pro- 
found existing between acquaintances, neighbors and 
even friends because of ecclesiastical, social, domestic, 
educational, temperament and character conditions 

The Alleghenies, Ural and Andes ranges of mountains 



EFFECT OF DISTANCE 249 

are nothing as compared to the separating power of these 
states and circumstances. The desert is not more forbid- 
ding. The polar regions scarcely more impenetrable. 
The seas are hardly wider than the little side yard or 
church creed which separates two men living side by side 
on the same street, or in pews just across the aisle from 
each other. 

There are few travelers who are willing to cross these 
deserts. Few like Abruzzi who scale the Himalayas. 
The followers of Columbus are not many who will take 
the trouble to sail from the east to find out who and 
what is in the west. 

So the ignorance of each other continues, the an- 
tipathies prevail, the misjudgment goes on, reprisals 
are the order of the day in many quarters; and war 
is carried on after the bitterest and most relentless 
fashion in homes, neighborhoods, communities and 
churches in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and 
ten, nearly two thousand years since the Holy Ghost 
fell on the church in the baptism of purity, power and 
perfect love. 



XXIX 

LESSONS FROM HALLEY's COMET 

These celestial visitors called comets are full of 
mystery. Just what they do for the universe is unknown 
still, although astronomers have been studying them for 
many centuries. That they do perform some essential 
part we question not, as God makes nothing for naught. 

If insignificant worms, burrowing away out of sight 
under the ground, render a most important service to 
the soil, how much more should we be prepared to Re- 
lieve that these great leviathans of the sky with heads 
ranging from fifty thousand to one million miles in 
diameter, and with tails sometimes reaching the amaz- 
ing length of one hundred million miles and more, 
have a most essential work to render for the good not 
only of our solar system, but for the vast universe itself 
that lies so far away from our little settlement, or village 
of planets. 

Some of these comets are elliptic ; that is, their angle 
of turning around the sun is such that the astronomers 
can calculate from the two lines of approach and de- 
parture what size the whole curve or ellipse is, and so 

250 



LESSONS FROM HALLEY's COMET 251 

when the glaring eyed, hair streaming sky racer will re- 
turn again. These ellipses or heavenly race tracks 
range in the matter of time from three years to eight 
hundred and even more; and as to distance from a few 
hundred million of miles to such numbers as to make 
the head whirl, and almost bankrupt mathematics in 
the use of figures. 

The comet of 1882, which many of our readers will 
remember as such a splendid object, especially in the 
morning sky, will not return for nearly one thousand 
years. 

The comet now approaching us was last here in 1835 
and has an ellipse of about seventy-five years. This 
visitor belongs to our solar system. All these seventy- 
five years Halley's comet, as it is called, has been cross- 
ing just half the breadth of our. solar system and re- 
turning. Somewhere about the year 1872 it rounded 
Neptune, our remotest planet, which is two billion eight 
hundred millions of miles from the sun, and started 
back this way. Astronomers say that its present ac- 
celerated speed as it approaches the sun is about a 
million miles a day. 

There is another class of comets called parabolas, 
and still another known as hyperbolas. The two lines 
of approach and recedure of the parabolas are such 
as to indicate that this class of comets will never re- 



252 A BOX or treasure 

turn. The curve made by them in turning the sun is 
60 great that it will never be closed as in the case of 
a circle or ellipse. Such a comet goes off into infinity. 

The hyperbolas, of which only a half dozen or so have 
been seen by the telescope, move in still remoter regions 
from the sun; and while the elliptic comet comes in a 
few hundred thousand or several millions of miles from 
the sun, the hyperbolas' nearest approach is three hun- 
dred millions of miles. Like spectre ships on the sea of 
infinite space, they silently pass on by us, and away for- 
ever in the boundless immensity beyond. 

The only difference we can see, from what we have 
read, between the parabola and hyperbola comet is that 
the latter seems to be headed for far more distant points 
in the universe than the former. The ablest writers 
on the sidereal heavens think that these more remote 
rangers of the skies have been on their way toward uc 
not only for thousands but millions of years. 

The present approaching visitor brings us several les- 
sons or messages from the skies. 

One is the inconceivable vastness of God's "universe 
or empire. 

So many people regard the earth and themselves, as 
so large and important, that they need this solemn 
reminder coming to them through the heavens. 

Let the reader bear in mind that the trip taken by 



LESSONS FROM HALLEY's COMET 253 

Halley's comet across just half the diameter of our 
Solar System, would require a locomotive going at the 
rate of a thousand miles a day, eight thousand two 
hundred and sixteen years to accomplish, and yet our 
Solar System as compared to the Astral system above 
us and beyond us in the far away firmament, is like a 
shell on the sea shore, a pebble in the desert of Sahara, 
a mere speck on the face of creation. 

It is known that light travels at the rate of one 
hundred and eighty-six thousand miles a second. So 
it takes light from the sun nearly four hours to reach 
Neptune, the farthest planet of our Solar System. 

But think of it! God's universe is so great that it 
requires light thirty thousand years to cross the diameter 
of even the visible stellar heavens that twinkle at such 
infinite distances above and on all sides of fathomless 
space. 

We glance at the nations of Europe, at our own 
country, at our proud cities, and say if the Solar System 
itself six billions of miles in diameter is but a speck 
or dot on the face of creation, what are you? and 
where do you come in? 

Truly, the comet which brings this exhortation with 
attendant reflections does well in its preaching. Fixing 
its gleaming eye upon us, and throwing its stream- 
ing hair back from its white forehead, it makes an appeal 



254 A BOX OF TREASURE 

of such a nature to the whole human family as should 
make every one lift his eyes from mud and the muck 
rake and fix them with the life ever after on God, 
Christ, duty and eternity. 

A second message of the comet is in regard to the 
greatness of God who made the universe. 

That such a system, vast, complicated and yet har- 
monious at every point, could have evolved itself with- 
out an infinite omnipotent intelligence back of it, is too 
absurd to entertain as a thought a moment. It would be 
infinitely easier to believe that a watch with all its 
related and correlated parts, time-keeping power, etc., 
etc., made itself, than to think for a moment that the 
stupendous and perfect mechanism in the heavens above 
us sprang there by blind chance, or through a fortuitous 
concourse of atoms. There is too much harmony, regu- 
larity, order, and smooth working laws to credit such 
folly, a single instant. 

The comet puts in its voice here. Speaking to the 
world it says: 

"I left you seventy-five years ago. I am due to 
cross your track in 1910. Please put on your Bul- 
letin Board that I am on time. Add also that the 
God who made such a locomotive for the sky, and laid 
the tracks in the air, and arranged the schedule, caused 
a six billion miles run without a stop for recoaling, and 



LESSONS FROM HALLEY's COMET 255 

engineered the whole thing through without a single 
failure or accident, is a God infinite in wisdom, almighty 
in power, is as good as He is great, and should be wor- 
shiped, adored and obeyed by every man, woman and 
child on the face of the earth." 

A third message of the comet is a warning of the 
hopelessness of all opposition to God. 

It would have us to consider its own vast size, its rush 
at times of over one hundred miles a second, its swing 
out into space beyond the limits of the Solar System 
for five hundred millions of miles; and yet argues the 
comet : 

"God easily manages me. He has bridled me with 
His laws and guides as He will. When I was almost 
out of sight of the whole Solar System, the Almighty 
laid His hand on me out yonder in measureless space 
and began to draw me back. And I had to yield. And 
great in volume as I am, I was as an infant in the 
hands of a giant. And yet he is controlling ten thou- 
sands times ten thousands comets larger than myself, 
and is leading billions of suns through the infinite fields 
of space as a shepherd would direct his flock through 
a field. 

What hope of success, then, has any man or city, or 
nation against such a Being of Omnipotence whom not 
only winds and sea obey, but the universe itself stands 



256 A BOX OF TREASURE 

in place because of the Word of His power. My advice. 
Bays the Comet, to everybody is to get right with God 
at once. Let the potsherds strive with the potsherds 
of earth, but "woe unto him who striveth with his 
maker/* 

A fourth lesson of the comet has reference to the 
equanimity with which God must view all enemies to 
Himself and His truth. 

It is an awe inspiring thought to a human being 
to know that great bodies of matter from one million to 
many million miles in diameter are rushing through 
space with a speed from one to four hundred miles 
a second and that still other vast bodies are crossing the 
orbits of the former class, and yet the Almighty is with- 
out the slightest anxiety. The Bible speaks of His 
peace and how it passeth all understanding. 

The fact is that God is greater than the universe, 
and His power infinitely beyond anything that He has 
made. So the Almighty perfect master of the situation 
rules on restfully and triumphantly, knowing there can 
never be accident, failure or direful mishap in His vast 
physical kingdom of billions of suns, trillions of planets, 
quadrillions of satellites and quintillions of comets with- 
out His consent or bringing about. 

The Cometic argument is, if God is thus undisturbed 
by what we see going on all around us in space among 



257 

the worlds, how much more tranquil is the Almighty 
when He beholds a few human insects and ants trying 
to sting His truth to death or block up His way in Re- 
demption and the providential deliverances of the chil- 
dren of men. 

How little a man must look to God. How small even 
the monarch of earth. The Bible says that when the 
kings of the earth took counsel together against Him 
and His Anointed, He that sat in the heavens laughed. 
He never arose from His throne, but continued to sit, 
and as He sat. He laughed. 

How perfectly are we all in His power. If we tried 
to run He could chase us with a comet. If we defied 
Him He could send a stream of destroying fire on "us 
from the skies as he did on Sodom. Indeed, He could by 
the breaking of one of the laws He made, send the world 
flying from its place, and let it fall forever and ever 
in the black, bottomless space that lies underneath the 
vast twinkling universe of God. 

No, God is not afraid of any one of us, nor of all 
of us put together. This may be one of the reasons 
He lets us live, and furnishes us air, sunlight, and 
rations while we keep up the hopeless contest. 

A further message from the comet is one of wonder 
that his approach should be viewed with alarm and many 
times with panic. 



258 A BOX OF TREASURE 

What the Comet communicated at this point we got 
by wireless. It said : 

Every time that I or some of my brethren flash 
through the skies there is always a lot of you people 
on earth that think the end of the world is coming. 
Why don't the people read the Bible and get over your 
newspaper alarms? It is true that the world is to be 
destroyed, but not by a comet, but by Him who made 
the comets. He will appear in the sky and not one of 
us; and the nations will wail not because it sees one 
of us in the heavens, but because of the sight of Him 
who made the universe and has come to judge the world 
on the last day of its probation. 

Another word I would say, and that is, as I have 
returned after a long absence, even more certainly will 
the Being who created me come back to earth; and if 
men dread me and my coming, how much more ought 
they to dread and prepare for the return of Him who 
made all the comets, and all the worlds and suns, and 
holds the universe in the hollow of His infinite hand. 



XXX 



THE AEROPLANE BLESSING 



The Wright brothers, Wilbur and Orville, became 
convinced that it was possible to make a machine which 
while heavier than air yet could fly. 

In this they voiced a belief beyond the general faith 
around them, and in face of the popular view that the 
only contrivance man could construct which would float 
and bear human beings with it_, must be less heavy than 
the air which its size displaced. So the balloon filled 
with a gas of much lighter specific gravity than our 
terrestrial atmosphere was the commonly accepted faith 
and highest scheme of mechanism as to a flying machine. 

But the Wright brothers had a mental vision of the 
aeroplane, and began to talk about it. 

Perhaps they had observed that birds were heavier 
than air, and yet they skimmed and shot through the 
sky. May be they pondered over the fact that satellites, 
planets and suns were much weightier than the ether 
in which they floated. And so the mental inquiry and 
investigation began. 

Evidently they reasoned from these visible data, and 
259 



260 A BOX OF TREASURE 

felt assured that there were laws and principles in 
nature which if discovered and applied would result in 
a machine that would rush and fly, although like the 
birds and worlds, it was heavier than the atmosphere 
they proposed to navigate. 

They spent very many hours watching the flight of 
larger birds like vultures as they circled about in the 
mid heavens. Moreover, they talked so much about the 
machine they intended making and flying in, that it is 
said the women of the household were nearly distracted 
and felt like giving them another kind of flight through 
the air by means of their brooms. 

At this juncture the two young men applied to the 
War Department, unfolding their plans and asking for 
financial assistance in the matter which so profoundly 
interested and engaged them. 

The War Department tossed the letter aside into the 
waste basket, was much amused, said no such thing had 
ever been or could be, called the Wright brothers a couple 
of cranks and proceeded to forget the whole occurrence. 

After this the two young men, though disappointed, 
yet not at all despairing, founded what they called an 
Experimentation Station at a place in North Carolina 
called Kill Devil Hill. Here they made many unavail- 
ing efforts to fly with their machine. With each baffled 
experience they would study the question again, working 



AEROPLANE BLESSING 261 

on tlie machine here and there as they thought they 
saw the difficulty, and then would try again. 

A number of people who had come to observe what 
was going on, and to witness a success, grew wearied 
and fell away in their attendance thinking that nothing 
would ever come of it. 

But one day the machine flew! And the "Wright 
brothers were in it! Such had been the diminution of 
interest that only five people witnessed the victory; the 
'^getting through;^' in a word, saw the two young men 
get the Aeroplane Blessing. 

The news was flashed by the wires all over the land. 
A machine heavier than the air had been made to fly! 
And while some still doubted and said nothing would 
ever come of it but broken bones and destroyed lives, 
yet others believed, and it would be hard to enumerate 
the great number that are to-day working diligently and 
persistently on similar air machines that they might 
obtain the same blessing the Wright brothers got on 
Kill Devil Hill, and fly as they flew and as they have 
been flying ever since. 

In like manner there were those in the Church of 
Christ whom we can properly call the "Eight Brothers" 
who believed it was possible to rise, float and fly in the 
experience of holiness even in this present sinful world. 

The Wrong Brothers and the Brothers-in-law in the 



262 A BOX or treasure 

Church took issue with them, and firmly and even vio- 
lently and angrily stated no such experience was possible. 
That we had to become lighter than this world's air. 
That we had to be emptied of the soul by death, drop 
this heavy physical body in the grave, before we could 
ever dream of being holy. That we had to be made 
ethereal by glorification and translation, and then in 
some far distant world where there was no such thing 
as the attraction of gravitation exercised by sin and 
things of time and sense, then, and only then, we could 
rise, float and fly in the atmosphere of the heavenly 
life. 

But the Hight Brothers had been struck with the 
amazing analogy and parable going on in the sky about 
them of birds heavier than the air flying about easily, 
and worlds weightier thari the ether whirling around 
safely, regularly and beneficially in the vast depths of 
space. And they had also found something in the Bible 
which agreed exactly with the divine handwriting and 
argum^ent in the mid heavens, viz., that He could sanctify 
us wholly, and preserve us blameless in the midst of a 
crooked and perverse generation, could keep us from 
falling and present us faultless at last before His pres- 
ence in Heaven with exceeding joj. 

So the Right Brothers went to work to get the bless- 
ing that makes us overcome the world, the flesh and the 



AEROPLANE BLESSING 263 

devil, gives us a "full joy," causes it to ••remain," keeps 
us unspotted from the world and delivering us from the 
hand of our enemies, enables us to live without fear in 
holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of 
our life. 

There was a natural application to the powers that 
be, for sympathy, instruction and help in the matter. 
But all such applicants soon found out that they had 
run up against a War Department instead of an In- 
struction Bureau. So that many who read these lines 
will remember how their letters were thrown in the 
Waste Basket, how they were dubbed cranks, visionaries, 
enthusiasts and even Pharisees; how there was much 
amusement at their expense at headquarters and else- 
where; and how with a great number, the occurrence, 
the individual, and all were put out of mind. Some 
quite eminent in the War Department said that really 
they had no time to devote to such twaddle and non- 
sense. 

There was nothing left for the Eight Brothers to 
do, but to establish an Experimentation Station. In 
other words, they fell on their knees and begged the 
Lord to give them the Flying Blessing. They started 
a Revival meeting in an old school house or in a brush 
arbor in the woods, and falling down at the altar pleaded 
with God for holiness or the Aeroplane Blessing. They 



264 A BOX or treasure 

told Him th.ey knew but little of the mysteries of the 
universe and grace, but they did know that He v/as 
God; that He was omnipotent; that He was greater 
than the world and all the worlds; that He was might- 
ier than His own laws; that He was infinitely more 
powerful than the Devil and all devildom put together ; 
that if sin abounded, grace much more abounded; that 
they just knew He was able to do exceeding abundantly 
for them above all that they could ask or think; and 
that they wanted the blessing of a pure heart and a con- 
stantly victorious life in this life and world. 

Oh how the Right Brothers prayed, wept, and kept 
trying to fly. 

There were many efforts and many failures. But 
with each failure they would examine carefully the 
mechanism of their consecration, studied the steering 
gear of the Word, increased and perfected the steam 
of faith and then would try again. 

The Wrong Brothers were much amused and discon- 
tinued their attendance on the meeting. The Brothers- 
in-law said the whole thing was a piece of superlative 
folly. The idea of living a holy life in such a world as 
this. Of flying with these heavy natures of ours in such 
an atmosphere as belonged to this sinful planet. They 
were so indignant that they not only would not go to 
the meeting, but denounced it everywhere. 



AEROPLANE BLESSIJfG 265 

The name of the place where the meeting was held 
was called Kill the Old Man Hill. It was not an 
euphonious title, and the name offended a great number 
of fastidious people. Some kept away from the Experi- 
ment Station Camp Grounds because of this objection- 
able nomenclature. Still others came out of curiosity, 
but after a number of services, and not beholding any- 
thing which rewarded their itching eyes and ears, they 
also fell away, and Hardly a handful was left at the 
altar looking on where the Eight Brothers were trying 
to make an ascension. 

One day they flew! They got the blessing! They 
rose in the air! They sailed over the heads of the 
Wrong Brothers, the Brothers-in-law, the Half Brothers, 
the Step Brothers and all the others who knew not the 
experience of Kill the Old Man Hill ! 

They got the body, then property and all the heavy 
things of time and sense on the Altar. Saw with a 
flash the principles and laws of a Redemption greater 
than the Fall. Got everything adjusted, and one day 
touched the spring and flew. 

Moreover, they have been floating, flying and sailing 
ever since in the clear blue sky of holiness. It is a joy 
and inspiration to see them living above the world, 
though still in the world. And demonstrating to all 
observers that through the grace and power of the Soti 



266 A BOX or treasure 

of God they can live soberly, righteously and godly in 
this present world, and serve the Lord in holiness all 
the days of their life. 

Meantime the news has been flashed in all directions. 
We can be sanctified wholly, and kept from falling in 
this life and in this world. Whereupon Experimenta- 
tion Stations in the shape of Revival Meetings and Camp 
Grounds are being established in every direction. And 
letters and telegrams are continually carrying the tid- 
ings, that while the Wrong Brothers are out in force at 
the Experimentation Station and obtaining nothing, yet 
the Eight Brothers are getting through and making 
glorious ascensions. One telegram read, two hundred 
flew at this Camp Meeting. Another dispatch said 
sixty flew at the last service. 

And behold the conviction is deep and spreading 
everywhere, that to get the real blessing, the genuine 
thing, the floating, flying, sailing experience above the 
world and sin, the rise must be made on Kill the Old 
Man Hill. 



XXXI 



THE FORTY 



Great has been the number, and very different in kind 
have been the bands and companies that have formed 
in the streets and proceeded from the gates of Jerusalem. 
But one in particular for character uniqueness holds 
our attention for awhile. Numerically, according to the 
Scripture, the individuals amounted to forty. As to 
cruelty of heart and wickedness of design, hardly any 
array of figures could have done them justice. But the 
term "Forty," since their short-lived history, has been 
preserved to brand this company and give it an im- 
mortality of infamy, even as the words "The Twelve," 
"The Seventy," and "The One Hundred and Twenty" 
are now known to describe other bodies of men, giving to 
them as well an eternity of honor and glory. 

As "The Forty" the men making up this band will 
ever be known as beings who had become unified to 
commit as unjust, cruel and murderous an act as ever 
emanated from a depraved human heart. The iniquity 
which drev/ them out of obscurity, and bound them to- 
gether as one man, was the murder of St. Paul. The 

267 



268 A BOX OF TREASURE 

agreement was to kill him without trial while he was 
on the way to a court of Justice. To make the act 
surer, they took a solemn oath not to eat or drink 
again until the black deed was done. 

The names of these men have not been given. The 
whole Forty could not send down a single title to pos- 
terity and history. The Bible explanation is found in 
the statement of the memory of the wicked rotting and 
perishing. 

In the long centuries that have rolled by and over 
them in some distant world, we doubt not they have 
wished their history had perished with their names. 
But the Bible tells us that everything shall be brought 
to light, and that which is hidden will be made manifest ; 
and so their plot to kill an innocent man is coming up 
the ages to confront them at the Judgment Bar of God. 

At first there is felt a wonder in the mind that forty 
men could be found in one city ready to enter upon 
such a frightful compact of death. But it must be re- 
membered that this was the same place that sent out 
of its gates a multitude to murder the Son of God. 
Then the human heart is the same in all times and 
countries, and ready until changed by divine grace to 
enter upon horrible agreements of wrong and sin, and 
equally ready to carry out its plans in fearful acts of 
cruelty, injustice and death itself. 



THE FOKTY 269 

Eepeatedly we have known bodies of men try to put 
down, as they call it, another man; and this intended 
victim of their hate, would be no sinner, no violator 
of commandments, human or divine, but simply claim- 
ing to be cleansed by the Blood of Christ and filled 
with the Holy Ghost. 

So we have seen one hundred pitted against one, who 
made not the slightest effort toward self-defence. 

Then we have known of four in one city who entered 
into agreement to crush and ruin a man whom God was 
continually honoring and using in the salvation of 
souls. 

We also know of a case where three in another city, 
and three again in still another community, entered into 
the old compact of the Forty, to down an individual 
who had displeased and offended them. 

The partnership and covenant was not to destroy 
wicked corporations around them, or overthrow bold and 
powerful enemies of God; but to blight, blacken, injure 
and overwhelm one who had met Jesus in the way; who 
had tarried and been filled with the Spirit in the Upper 
Eoom ; but who did not pronounce their shibboleth, did 
not cast out devils their way, and would not bow down 
to them as the supreme authority. 

According to history it was dangerous to be a Sad- 
ducee when a Pharisee was around, and vice versa. In 



270 A BOX OF TEEASUBE 

later days a Protestant had no chance in the Middle 
and Dark Ages. The Catholic downed him. To-day 
the unpardonable offense is to claim the experience of 
holiness. And still again, to refuse to go into the 
fanaticisms and wildfireisms of a number is to he 
rushed upon at once by "The Forty." 

Certain conditions of things seem to bring out the 
Forty. Carried away by prejudice, misinformation, in- 
tolerance, unholy zeal and a blinding hate and fury 
they doom to downfall and death all who cross their 
path. 

But the Forty made a very foolish vow. It seems 
that they bound themselves with a solemn oath not to 
eat or drink until they had slain Paul, a chosen servant 
of God. In this covenant of Death, they overlooked 
some very important facts. 

One, the uncertainty of getting possession of the man 
they had doomed to destruction. 

Another most weighty truth they failed to take into 
consideration was that there was One on the Throne of 
the Universe, whose eyes run through the earth to show 
Himself strong in behalf of those whose heart is per- 
fect toward Him. 

A third fearful fact was that they had unconsciously 
voted death upon themselves in case they did not suc- 
ceed in killing their victim.. They swore they would not 



THE FOETY 271 

eat or drink again until they took the life of the Apostle. 
But what if he escaped their vengeance ? Then accord- 
ing to their vow they must all die instead. And more- 
over, they chose for themselves a very horrible mode of 
dissolution; one lingering and agonizing, viz., the death 
by starvation. What a fearful alternative they had 
brought to their own doors ! What a pit they had dug 
for their own feet which they intended for another. 

Fourth, the Forty ran up against another oath older 
than theirs by two thousand years, and one made by 
God Himself. Luke describes it : "The oath which He 
sware unto our father Abraham that we being delivered 
from the hand of our enemies might serve Him with- 
out fear in holiness and righteousness before Him all 
the days of our life." 

Here was oath over against oath. A human vow 
versus a divine promise. A worm and grasshopper of 
the dust tr3dng to stop Him who rolls the stars through 
infinite space. The poor creature of an hour endeavor- 
ing to measure arms with the omnipotent and everlasting 
One of the skies who inhabiteth eternity, and says be- 
side Me there is none other. What result could there be, 
but one in such a hopeless conflict. What but con- 
fusion, failure, overthrow and death could come to 
the Forty. 

Alas for them when they vowed such an oath against 



272 ;a box of tkeasure 

a good man ! Instead of mentioning eating and drink- 
ing, and the meal they proposed to dispose of upon 
Paul's death, they should have ordered forty winding 
sheets, forty cofifins, and given directions to have forty 
graves or tombs prepared at once and for themselves in 
their home cemeteries. 

The vanity and impotency of the oath of the Forty 
is seen in the easy, simple way in which God brought 
it to naught. He did not summon flashes of lightning 
and crashes of thunder; He martialed no howling 
tempests nor cheek-blanching earthquake throes; noth- 
ing of the kind. He simply caused it to happen that 
Paul's sister's son heard of the conclave and cabal; 
and the chief captain of the Eoman garrison was told 
that a young man had a certain thing to tell him. 
Then the Bible says, '^The chief captain took him by 
the hand and went with him aside privately, and asked 
him, what is that thou hast to tell me?" 

So out came the hellish plot! And then quietly, 
that very night, Claudius Lysias, the captain, prepared 
a guard of two hundred soldiers, seventy horsemen, and 
two hundred spearmen, four hundred and seventy in 
all, and committing Paul to their keeping, sent the 
apostle swiftly and safely away to a distant city. 

When the morning came, and the Forty arose fierce 
and breakfastless to kill Paul as he would be led to 



THE FOKTY 27S 

trial, behold their intended victim was safe and sound 
many miles away. 

Truly, the simplicity and ease of the deliverance was 
one of God's ways of showing His enemies their utter 
nothingness in His sight. Not even an angel was called 
from heaven to withstand the Forty. A whisper, a 
handshake, a brief colloquy, a quiet order, a hurried 
night march, and the deliberately concerted, carefully 
planned, and terrifically sworn to plot of nearly an 
half hundred wicked men is brought suddenly to utter 
confusion and failure. What an immeasurable contempt 
must be felt by the Almighty for all the compacts and 
confederations of evil made by men against Himself and 
His people. The Bible says He that sitteth in the 
heavens laughs, even when the kings of the earth take 
counsel against Himself and His Anointed. What about 
the opposition of ordinary mortals! 

It is said that Dean Swift had a Board of Vestry- 
men of unusually thick skulls. He was trying in vain 
to get their consent to have constructed a walk of 
wooden blocks or cobble stones from the street to one 
of the church entrances. Suddenly, in a moment of 
irritation, he said : "Gentlemen, all you have to do is to 
put your heads together, and the walk will be made." 

There is no record that the aforesaid vestrymen saw 
the irony in the speech; but if they had, and had dedi- 



274 A BOX OF TREASURE 

cated their thick craniums to make the pavement, still 
there would be no lack of similarity of dense occiputs 
left on earth, and invariably seen worn by men who pit 
their vows and strength against the promises and om- 
nipotence of God. 

On just such highways of numbskulls, God has sent 
and is still sending His servants and truth to win fresh 
victories, and to conquer and possess the land. He 
maketh the wrath of man to praise Him, and the re- 
mainder He restrains. 

Here the curtain might properly fall on the Forty, 
mad and hungry, without breakfast and without Paul. 
But the scene went on. 

'Epv there is dinner time, and still no Paul. And 
then there is that most awkward and uncomfortable oath 
not to eat anything nor to drink anything until they 
had slain God's servant. Then here is the supper 
hour, but with no eating according to the fearful oath 
by which they had bound themselves. The stomach was 
in an agony, and the mind was in a storm. The battle 
was lively between the two. Which should surrender 
and which one would capitulate. Something must be 
done and that quickly, for the cemetery draws very near 
if the Bread and Meat Supply is cut off. But what 
about that oath! And what was to become of their 
word of honor ? And what would the church say ! And 



THE FORTY 275 

how the people would laugh. And how they would 
guffaw, no matter what they did, whether they starved 
because they did not get Paul, or returned to food 
after not getting him. Oh, that oath ! And oh, these 
empty, aching stomachs! And oh, the trouble these 
St. Pauls and other servants and preachers of Christ 
bring on respectable church members and certain honor- 
able and high-toned citizens of the land ! 

On the first day of this self inflicted fast was doubt- 
less born the celebrated religious fad, "The No Break- 
fast Movement." The Forty did not intend to make 
themselves famous this way, but nevertheless they seem 
to be the charter members of this abstinence society. 

On the second day, it is likely that the Postum Coffee 
Movement began. The argument being made by adroit 
consciences working over empty stomachs that it was 
neither meat nor drink, and so could be compromised on. 

The third day with its increased suffering may have 
led to the invention of various light 'breakfast foods," 
in the desperate effort to ward off immediate starvation 
and mollify conscience as well. 

The fourth day a number ate on the sly, if they had 
not done so before; while others got absolved from their 
oath by the priests, and had a lively skirmish at home 
among the pots and kettles. 

The fifth day saw the last one who had held out. 



276 A BOX OF TREASURE 

if any refrained from food that long, drawing up to 
the table, instead of stretching out in a cofiin and dis- 
appearing in the grave. 

And so none starved, and all broke their oath. The 
apology and explanation which they gave for their con- 
tinued existence on earth was, that while they had 
not killed Paul, yet they had made him run, and so 
they felt absolved from their vow, and therefore could 
eat again. 

But Paul had not run ! 

Alas for the Forty ! We do not doubt but that every 
time after this, when they were seen sitting down at a 
table to eat, people would smile and even laugh out- 
right. 

As to their present life in the Pit, we think it very 
likely that devils and lost men often ask them if they 
believe in sticking to one's oaths; and which in their 
judgment weighs most, and better deserves attention, a 
big vow or a great dinner. 

The descendants of the Forty are still in our midst. 
Still we behold compacts made and combinations formed 
against the servants of the Lord. Still we see the oath 
of men going down before the older promise of God 
that human hates and plots shall not succeed against 
His friends and followers. Still we see the Forty suf- 
fering hunger pangs from the disappointed Feast of 



PREACHING 277 

gratified revenge and malevolence. And above all, the 
Forty themselves are compelled to behold men whom 
they had condemned and devoted to overthrow and 
ruin, pass triumphantly on their way, secure and re- 
joicing under the strange double protection of man 
and God. 

Alas for the Forty ! 



XXXII 

THE DIVINE PERMISSION OF WRONG DOING 

There is scarcely any feature connected with man's 
stay on earth more mysterious than the apparent un- 
consciousness and inaction of the Supreme Being in 
regard to the violence, injustice, cruelty and wrong 
doing which takes place in every age and on every hand. 

Nations are overwhelmed, cities pillaged, people slain 
or led into captivity, and there seems no sign in the 
skies that the Omniscient One up there beheld any part 
of the melancholy history. 

Looking closer we behold individuals wronged, cheated, 
impoverished, insulted, slandered, oppressed and mur- 
dered, and still no voice forbidding from Heaven, no 
thunderbolt of justice or vengeance dropping from a 
cloud, the seasons come and go, the victim sinks out 
of public sight or disappears in the grave, while the 
wrongdoer keeps on in a flourishing way, well in body, 
prosperous in business and having apparently all that 
heart could wish. 

David confessed that he had been nearly overwhelmed 
at this view of crowned iniquity, and sleeping justice, 

278 



DIVINE PEKMISSION OF WRONG DOING 279 

until from the standpoint of the sanctuary he got light 
and explanation. And many since David's time have 
wondered and even despaired over the same spectacle, 
and failed to get the viewpoint and consolation from 
the House of God. 

Xot a reader of these lines but could give matter for 
a volume showing up the suffering of the innocent, the 
triumph and prosperity of the wicked, and the wrongs 
of a life time coming to the tomb and final sleeping 
place of the dead, still unrectified. 

We knew a man who married a wealthy and beautiful 
Southern girl. He gambled her fortune away, was 
faithless to her, made her life miserable and finally 
broke her heart. Long ago she has been in the grave 
robbed of many years of a beautiful life to which she 
was entitled. In the last few years of her existence she 
had to toil like a slave. Her sorrows drove her into 
a seclusion from her friends, and then came the un- 
timely grave. 

The man who committed the wrong still lives, seem- 
ingly without regret or remorse, has every physical com- 
fort, and has his concluding years made bright and 
pleasant to him through a daughter who is perfectly 
devoted to this slayer of her mother. 

A handsome girl from the same Southland married 
a man who fairly worshipped her. There was no want 



280 A BOX or TREASURE 

of hers but he gladly supplied and his constant effort 
for years was to make life bright and beautiful to her. 
In return she neglected and heart starved him, and he be- 
came the saddest and most silent of men. He died in 
the prime of manhood and seemed glad to go. She 
was left with the property, and is still living without 
any sign of mental or spiritual suffering, and no mark 
or judgment of a displeased Heaven upon member, 
person or life for the course of selfishness, sinfulness 
and heartlessness which she follow^ for over forty 
years. 

In numerous Gospel meetings, the worldly Church- 
ianity element prevaik against faithful servants of God 
and the truth as it is in its fullness in Christ. Some- 
times the evangelist is sent off unpaid, while busy 
tongues abuse and misjudge him by the retail and whole- 
sale. He and the Holiness people who stood with him 
are said to be disturbers, church splitters and the 
spreaders of false doctrine. The services close on some 
occasions with a very slender victory, or a drawn fight, 
or what seems to the public to be a defeat for full 
falvation. 

The workers go away under social and ecclesiastical 
disfavor, while the victorious, worldly element of the 
church, resume the reproved, condemned methods of 
amusement and finance, get a popular evangelist the 



DIVINE PERMISSION OF WRONG DOING 281 

next time, and seem not only to be perfectly serene and 
easy in heart and mind, are happy in the social, and 
prosperous in the business life, but even appear to the 
public to have the favor of Heaven with them in their 
subsequent revival meeting under the gentle sway of 
Bro. Easy, the evangelist, and Professor Smile, the 
leader of song. 

People predicted the swift and terrible judgment of 
Heaven upon individuals, lay and ministerial, for the 
part they took in blocking up the way of a sweeping 
revival, and standing in between God and the souls 
of their household and the congregation as to salvation. 
Some thought they would be struck dead in a few days. 
But the weeks roll by and we see the laughers and 
registers of holiness, still breaking the Sabbath, still 
going to the lodge, still smoking their pipes and cigars, 
and still evidently prospering in the store, standing 
high in the conference, powerful in the cabinet, and say- 
ing their health was never better than now. 

We have known faithful preachers put out of promi- 
nent pulpits by wealthy people who used bishops as 
their instruments. Such men we have seen humiliated 
before the public, ostracized from many circles, brought 
into the deepest financial distress, while the families 
that so crushed them rolled around in wealth, in car- 
riages, in pride and in fat. Not a sign could be seen 



282 A BOX OF TREASURE 

from the visible Heaven that God had observed the way 
in which His devoted messengers had been treated. 
Humiliation and want were the accompaniments of the 
victim, and comfort, plenty, human adulation and their 
dictatorial way in everything seemed to go with those 
who had smitten the truth and God's prophets. 

In a meeting led by the writer, a man mauled and 
beat his wife for attending the services. She yielded 
and has doubtless gone into spiritual darkness. The 
man remains in excellent health, has seeming good 
epirits, enjoys eating and drinking, attends the lodge, 
and is evidently pleased highly with himself and the 
life he is living. 

Not a single stroke from the skies fell upon him 
when he struck down the mother of his children for 
attending the church where the fullness of the Gospel 
of Christ was being held up to her hungry soul. It 
looked then and since as if God had not observed the 
cruelty, brutality and moral awfulness of the act. That 
weakness and innocence are helpless, and that money, 
physical might and meanness have their day and com- 
plete, unhindered right of way. 

Before the reader draws a hasty conclusion, let him 
remember that this is not an unusual happening. This 
is not peculiar to this century, and the one lately passed 
away. 



DIVINE PERMISSION OF WRONG DOING 283 

How long were the Jews in Egyptian captivity or 
slavery ? How long was Joseph in prison, while those 
who put him there were in freedom outside? 

Let the reader count the years that Herod lived 
after he killed John the Baptist. It looked like Glod 
could not avenge the death of His true servant. Then 
enumerate the years Pilate lived after giving Jesus up 
to the murderous, clamoring Jews. And still again ob- 
serve that Jerusalem remained in its pridfi, ease, wealth, 
pleasure and formal ritualistic life forty years after 
crucifying the Son of God. 

To the careless thinker and observer it appears as if 
no great crime had been committed after all; as if 
Heaven was powerless to judge the proud city and 
haughty church that had murdered God's only Son, and 
requite them for the horrible crime they had committed. 

But God saw them! And God sees now! And the 
insulted King of the Universe had the power then and 
now to destroy in a single moment of time every being 
who is transgressing His laws, wronging His people 
and outraging the authority, dignity and majesty of 
Heaven. 

But there was and are still, reasons for that con- 
duct on the part of the Almighty which men have falsely 
construed into inattention, inaction, and disregard of 



284 A BOX OF TREASURE 

what is going on in the ranks of the beings He has 
created. 

One cause for God's apparent permission of wrong 
doing, is that immediate signal punishment and calamity 
for every misdeed would change the present probationary 
existence into a kind of automaton machine, slave, peni- 
tentiary-like character of living. 

Just as men in penal institutions are knocked down, 
beaten and severely punished for the slightest misdeed, 
and get to wear a cowed face which covers a trembling, 
fearful, dissembling spirit, and obedience is rendered 
simply from servile dread and not from noble motives 
of love, duty and right; so the sudden infliction of 
judgment and physical suffering on men by the Al- 
mighty for every wrong word and act, would end the 
very freedom of choice, the liberty of motive and the un- 
trammeled spontaneous character of life that makes a 
genuine probation. 

Men would be outwardly good or obedient to divine 
commandments simply to escape immediate visitations 
of divine displeasure and wrath. Earth would no longer 
be an arena, where men could and would show to three 
worlds what their inward character really was, but a vast 
prison house where pricking swords, uplifted whips, 
handcuffs, clubs and dark cells in constant threat and 
use made the human race walk straight and do right. 



DIVINE PERMISSION OF WRONG DOING 285 

not from the love of God and good, but from constant 
dread of suffering and a paralyzing dread of the Lord 
of Heaven. 

God is no suppressionist. He wants things to come 
out for manifestation, confession, renunciation and de- 
struction. Moreover, the very liberty He grants men 
in their lives to act out what is really in them, becomes a 
wonderful confirmation of what He says in His Word 
about sin, and the human heart in its deceitfulness, 
blackness and desperate wickedness. 

We do not doubt that if God had not thrown out the 
lines of longitude and latitude of perfect moral free- 
dom, but had instead driven the race into a sullen, 
stolid submission through a superior physical force, that 
the students of character and writers on the spiritual 
and character life would be extolling human nature to 
the skies and the solemn assertions of the Bible about 
the extent and depth of the world's downfall into sin 
would be denied on every hand. 

But as the parable says, the Lord went into a far 
country, and stayed a long time. Here the permission 
for wrong doing is brought out in the double figure of 
a great distance and long time. 

Then came out the true inwardness of the tenants 
and they began their wicked career of injustice, oppres- 
sion and cruelty. They took advantage of what seemed. 



286 A BOX OF TREASURE 

to be opportunity, and filled the land with the sighs, 
tears and groans of their victims. 

A second reason for the divine permission of wrong 
doing for long periods is, that it is made to be a powerful 
test and discipline for the faith, patience and piety, of 
God's own people. 

David was driven to the sanctuary to understand as 
well as to endure the reign and prosperity of the 
wicked. And we will have to make the same flight to 
God to bear up under what we are forced to see and 
made to feel by the same characters and classes. 

We know of no more powerful call and drain upon 
faith than the sight of the wicked in power and com- 
fort, while God's true ones lack for daily necessities, are 
visited with afflictions, and meet with the unkindest and 
most unjust treatment at the hands of their fellow men. 
The soul is compelled to cling to God's word, and be- 
lieve in God's truth and faithfulness then, or it is sure 
to be undone. 

As for the discipline received by the mind and heart 
through such experiences, we need not argue. "We have 
long ago seen both in the Scripture and in life, that 
God in His dealings with His followers is constantly 
endeavoring to bring forth the passive graces of tlie 
Christian character which beyond all question are the 



DIVINE PERMISSION OF WRONG DOING 28? 

loveliest of all the virtues, excellencies and fruits of the 
redeemed soul. 

With this thought in mind we begin to see why the 
Lord let David have so many enemies and suffer so 
much at their hands ; why Job was so afflicted and lost 
his friends; why Joseph was allowed to stay in prison 
such a weary while; and why to this day He permits 
His people to be brought along ways of wrongs, sorrow 
and suffering thait they never would have dreamed of 
choosing for themselves. 

The result in many cases, in sweetness, patience, silent 
endurance, ^elf-containedness and a mighty strength in 
God, justifies the wisdom and providence of Heaven in 
the manner in which they have been tried, and the way 
along which they have been led. 

A third reason for God's slowness in inflicting imme- 
diate punishment on men for wrongdoing is that He 
has appointed a day, a great, final Day of Judgment 
when every one shall give account of himself to God 
for every thought, word and deed of the life, and when 
justice shall be laid to the line and righteousness to the 
plummet. 

God is going to be vindicated that day, the injured 
shall be righted, and sin shall be fearfully and eternally 
punished. 

So great, perfect and overwhelming will be the vie- 



288 A BOX OF TREASUEE 

tory of that final period for truth and for God, that 
He can afford to wait quietly, silently and assuredly for 
that time. 

The infidel, blasphemer and swearer will get their 
deserts that day. The business man who with trusts, 
monopolies, high prices and cheats in trade got rich at 
the expense of his oppressed neighbors will get his suf- 
fering and damnation at last. The rich who denied 
crumbs of bread to the poor at their gate will scream 
for drops of water in hell. 

The bishop who went around lecturing on secular and 
fictional subjects instead of preaching the Gospel; who 
traveled on the train on Sunday and fought holiness 
will stand undone at the Judgment and fall away with 
a cry of horror from the presence of the Judge as He 
says, ^'Depart from Me— I know you not." 

The man with the slanderous pen and mouth; the 
woman with the tongue of a serpent, will receive their 
retributive doom at last and be cast into the same Pit 
with all liars, whisperers, backbiters and takers up of 
every reproach against a neighbor. 

The being who possessed social, ecclesiastical and 
financial power on earth will be stripped of it all in 
the presence of Christ, and find too late that spiritual 
treasure is what is demanded that Day, that likeness 
in speech and life to Christ, and that the power of 



DIVINE PERMISSION OF WRONG DOING 289 

Blood-washed character is the real potency and necessary 
condition in the eternal world. 

The reign of the oppressor in church, state, social 
circle, business office, and the home, is over forever. 
The innocent are vindicated, the wronged are righted, 
the injured are blessedly and eternally recompensed. 
Tears are wiped away forever. There will be no more 
sorrow, neither any kind of pain. 

As for the wicked, the Bible says they shall be turned 
into hell with all the nations that forget God. It is 
the Day of the Wrath of the Lamb 'and the Justice and 
Judgment of God. "Well does the Scripture say, "The 
Great Day of His wrath has come, and who will be able 
to stand I" 



XXXIII 

THE NECESSITY OP THE DAY OP JUDGMENT 

There is absolute need for a great Judgment Day, 
where the Judge is all-powerful as well as infallible, and 
where decisions are exactly right, and all sentences are 
just and proper. 

God is not only to be vindicated at that time, but man 
also. The divine character is to be revealed, and human 
conduct in respect to that nature is likewise to be de- 
clared. There are some features of the Day which es- 
pecially impress the writer. 

One of them is the complete reversal of the opinions, 
judgments and sentences of this world upon human 
character, achievement and life. Men will be horrified 
and all but overwhelmed to find before the blazing tri- 
bunal of Almighty God, that those who were called 
^^first" on earth will be "last," "and the last shall be 
first." 

At that hour, offices, rank, position in church or state, 
will stand nowhere when separated from character. It 
is absolutely nothing to be elected to the chair of a 
college, or to a bishopric in a church, if one be not 

290 



NECESSITY OF DAY OF JUDGMENT 291 

chosen of God through the Spirit to holiness of heart 
and life. It will amount to nothing that the body has 
been burned, goods given to feed the poor, the tongue 
speak like an angel, if we have not the mind and possess 
not the Spirit of Christ. 

We have thought often of the discomfort and torture 
of a king or queen in the spirit-world accustomed to 
fulsome homage and adulation on earth, yet stripped 
of it all out there, and finding themselves in a spiritual 
rank far beneath some of their humblest subjects. How 
also prominent officials in the ecclesiastical realm will 
reconcile themselves to the fact of the tremendous ex- 
altation over them in heaven of men whom they de- 
spised, and lorded it over so much on earth. 

The Judgment Day is to show who was the real man 
in God's sight, and to establish the fact that it is not 
office or position on earth, but character, and that char- 
acter blood-washed, obedient to God, and possessing the 
Spirit of Christ. This fact alone will cause a marvellous 
coming up and going down in the opinions of men con- 
cerning individuals whom they had long ago graded and 
settled in a certain way in their own minds. Opinions 
will have to be changed. 

Another truth equally forcible is, that some of God's 
people are better than they seem, and others worse. It 
does not take long for us to get acquainted with these 



292 A BOX OF TEEASUEE 

characters, but many others do not thus see, because 
various things militate against the discovery. 

We knew a son who had the highest confidence in, 
and devotion to, the memory of his father. It was some- 
thing beautiful to hear him speak of his departed parent. 
But there were parties living who knew the father to be 
thoroughly unprincipled. Not for any consideration 
would they have broken the young man^s heart by the 
disclosure of the real parental life. Some idea of the 
coming shock to him on the Day of Judgment can be 
easily seen. 

It required a great deal of self control, as well as 
grace, for a group of ministers to smile pleasantly on a 
lady entertainer when she was enlarging upon the 
beautiful life, purity and high sense of honor of her 
husband, whom she called her "sweetheart," when they 
were in actual possession of knowledge sufficient to de- 
stroy her domestic happiness forever and cause the 
"sweetheart," as she called him, to leave the community 
in disgrace. 

On the other hand, there are people who are a great 
deal better than they get credit for. "We have known 
both men and women who have been made to suffer not 
only for years but for a life time, through the unscru- 
pulous or careless tongue of a fellow-creature. Inno- 
cent words and acts were misconstrued, distorted by an 



NECESSITY OF DAT OF JUDGMENT 293 

impure mind, and a suspicion, not to say a stain, was 
placed upon the name and character of a good man or 
woman. 

For years we misjudged a minister of the gospel 
through just such a verbal wrong done him by a quick 
speaking and hasty judging female. A simple act of po- 
liteness on his part was misconstrued by her diseased im- 
agination to be an impertinence and even insult. Years 
have passed and we have seen the man pastor of quite a 
number of leading churches, loved and respected by all 
of his congregations, while she, his detractor, has been 
classed and graded long ago by spiritual men in the 
pulpit and pew as "light" and "chaffy." But she has 
told the circumstances to many who, without means of 
discovering the truth, will go to the Judgment believ- 
ing in her and doubting the individual she stabbed. So 
that da}'" will hold another surprise. 

In applying the thought of this chapter to many hap- 
penings in life, we are constrained to say that in such a 
world as this, it is impossible to get justice. Sometimes 
prejudice is in the way; anger and hate make it im- 
possible for some to do justice to another; facts cannot 
be had; witnesses cannot be found; proof may not be 
obtained to refute a suspicion or lie, men will not con- 
fess their own acts of guilt; people do not take time 
to search out and find the truth; many receive the first 



294 A BOX OF TKEASURE 

Bide of a story related and hold to that; so that more 
.than ever we see the need of a Day of Judgment where 
facts will be known and the truth, and the whole truth 
at that, will be revealed. 

Among other happenings of earth are the separations 
and divorces taking place in so many families over the 
land. We have discovered that the sympathy from the 
first with the public is with the woman. Before a line 
is read about the sad occurrence the man is sentenced 
and hung, so to speak, in the Judgment of countless 
millions. The black dress, drooping head, and tears of 
the woman in the court house will generally carry with 
a sweep of emotion judge, jury and audience. 

Men as a rule appear at their worst in such a scene. 
No man looks well in an altercation, dispute, or legal 
suit with a woman. The sympathies are with the weaker 
vessel. Few stop to inquire into the merits of the case. 
People do not recall at such a time the possibility of art 
being brought to bear in the pose of the head, the droop 
of the eyelid, and even the flowing of tears; that the 
affecting scene has been studied out before, and even 
practiced. So the man is legally sat down on, and 
socially damned, and goes to the grave and to Judg- 
ment with a side of the question directly opposite to 
what the court and audience saw, and which history will 



NECESSITY OF DAY OF JUDGMENT 295 

astound people on that day when the white light of 
truth is poured on human conduct and life. 

Even in trials by jury, where witnesses are brought 
out by the score, and days are spent and every effort 
put forth to get at the real facts of different cases of 
crime, how impossible is it even after all this labor, 
to secure perfect justice to the accused. But when we 
are confronted with instances of accusation, where no 
effort is made to obtain proof or evidence, where the 
party is pronounced guilty without a trial, without a 
single chance to clear himself or herself, we see the very 
essence of the injustice and unreliableness of human 
judgment. 

Even in the courts of law run by unconverted men, 
they ask the prisoner at the bar whether he is guilty 
or not guilty. But we have to enter the social and 
church circle to behold the amazing spectacle of a man 
being tried without a jury, condemned without a hear- 
ing, and after being hung, asked if he has anything to 
say why he should not be executed. 

Truly the spirit of wrong and oppression is seen 
everywhere. We heard a mother once say to her son, 
who had misjudged her, ^^I thank God that a man is 
not my judge, even though that man may be my son." 
Few sons-in-law expect justice to be done them by a 
mother-in-law. Political parties have not the slightest 



296 A BOX OF TOEASUEB 

expectation of receiving proper treatment from the 
hands of their opponents. One religious denomination 
seems incapable of judging another ecclesiastical body 
properly and truly. 

When a man obtains the blessing of holiness, he 
might as well from that moment give up all idea of 
being understood, and of obtaining justice at the hands 
of his brethren in the church. All defense of self and 
explanations of words and works is that much breath 
lost. The sanctified man soon learns that he need not 
look to his conference, or bishop, or his church paper 
for endorsement and approval, no matter how close he 
may walk with God. Having found this out through 
bitter experience, many holiness people nowadays never 
make the slightest effort to defend or explain their con- 
duct under various charges and accusations in what is 
called the church press. 

Recently an evangelist was prohibited from holding 
a meeting in Texas by the pastor of the M. E. Church 
South. The Christian Advocate's account of it placed 
the evangelist in a most unenviable light. He was 
represented as a recalcitrant, as a defier of authorit}'', 
and as thrusting himself upon a community where he 
was not wanted. The whole article was as untrue as it 
was unkind. As the man read the piece, his heart 
sickened and aghed for minutes over this unjust editorial 



NECESSITY OF DAY OF JUDGMENT 297 

sentence. But he was to make a still more painful dis-- 
covery, for behold, in the columns of a holiness paper 
published in Texas, he was more severely handled than 
he had been by the church organ. The holiness paper 
said he had acted the coward in leaving the place. 

Perfectly conscious of the injustice of both charges; 
that he had not come in a defiant spirit, as one paper 
said, nor had he left with a single feeling of man fear 
in his heart, as the other journal asserted — he was made 
more than ever to see the impossibility of obtaining jus- 
tice in this world, even though our judges be preachers 
and editors of religious periodicals; and that many a 
sentence issued by an editorial tripod will, most fortu- 
nately for us all, be completely upset, and altogether 
reversed by the decision of the Highest and Last Court 
on the Judgment Day of the Son of God. 

When David was offered one of three troubles, war, 
famine or pestilence, he said to the prophet, ^Tjet me 
fall now into the hand of the Lord, let me not fall into 
the hand of man.'' 

This was almost the exact language of the captain of 
a merchantman, who, seeing himself and crew about to 
be captured by pirates, said, "I would rather trust to 
the mercy of God than the mercy of man," and firing 
his pistol into the powder magazine, blew himself and 
most of his followers into eternity. 



298 A BOX OF TREASURE 

Of course this dreadful act was wrong, but at the 
same time it showed the discovery by unsaved men of 
the very fact concerning which we have been writing. 

Truly, the longer we all live, the more thankful we 
should be, and are, that we are not to be finally judged 
by men in their shortsightedness, ignorance, and preju- 
dice, but by a holy, all wise, pitiful and just God. 



XXXIV 

THE QUIET POWER OF GOODNESS 

We were once in the city of Cologne on the banks of 
the River Rhine. At sunset we visited a great Cathedral 
that is famous for its architectural beauty and historic 
associations. 

We entered the building as the service of vespers 
commenced. Hundreds were present and all standing 
on the stone floor, as there seemed to be no pews. In 
the great throng we saw many peasants, while there 
were also throngs of others and of both sexes, who were 
citizens of the city, and doubtless members of the 
church we were visiting. A misty sunset reflection came 
through the large stained windows, while a few lights 
sparkled like stars here and there in the ceiling of the 
vast structure. A deep toned organ was playing softly in 
some remote hidden gallery, and a woman's voice was 
singing and leading the service from the same secret 
place high up in the groined arches of the pillared 
temple. 

A priest stood before the altar with a censer in his 
hand. As the organ played and the woman sang, he 

299 



300 A BOX OF TREASURE 

silently swung the censer. From where we stood we 
could just hear a slight tinkle of the chains as the in- 
cense bearing vessel was oscillated gently backward and 
forward. With each movement of the priest's hand we 
observed a little puff of white smoke or vapor leave the 
censer and dissipate in the air. 

But after awhile we recognized the sweet delicate 
odor of the incense. It had silently, noiselessly but 
steadily pushed its way through two or three hundred 
feet of atmosphere and had reached not only those who 
stood near, but had brought its fragrance like a de- 
lightful presence to those who were afar off 

We said at once this is the way that a truly good and 
beautiful life is recognized. If we are willing to be a 
small vessel like the censer, and let God put the spirit 
of Christ and Holiness in us and then give ourselves 
over into the hands of our High Priest, the Son of God, 
to be swung steadily as He will, those in the temple and 
in the community are certain to detect and appreciate 
the excellency and loveliness of the heavenly gift within 
us. Of course the melody of the organ must proceed, 
and the singing from unseen heights be realized, and so 
while the song goes on the life steadily reaches out 
touching this person and yonder individual, until a 
great congregation at last have to admit the sweetness 
and power of the life lived unobtrusively in their midst. 



QUIET POWEH OP GOODNESS 301 

One's talents may be few and ordinary, the work 
circmnscribed and the field limited, but if we will let 
the Saviour put the blessing of holiness in us, will per- 
mit Him to swing us in that narrow place where we 
dwell, and humble position we fill, it is but a question 
of time when the incense will travel a long way from 
the place where we first obtained it, and where we live, 
and the fragrance of the pure heart and the loving life 
will reach not only those near, but many afar off whom 
we never expected to touch, and will die ignorant of a 
multitude whom we have blessed. 

It is well known that the best man in a church is not 
thus acknowledged because he springs up and announces 
in a loud voice that he is, but the incense stole out 
humbly and devoutly from the human censer, as Christ 
swung him and they of the congregation had to admit 
that a beautiful life was in their midst. 

In like manner we get to know the best old woman 
in the country neighborhood. She lives in a lonely 
home that is off the main road ; she rarely visits or gets 
to town; she has no trumpet sounding before her what 
she is and what she has done. And yet everybody in 
that part of the county, and numbers in other counties 
know that the best woman in all that region lives in a 
certain humble dwelling back of the cotton wood grove, 
just the other side of the creek. 



302 A BOX OP TEEASURE 

Somehow people who are in trouble go to her first. 
The preacher himself visits her for counsel and sym- 
pathy. While the young mother who has just buried her 
first born soon finds her way to this gray-haired, shin- 
ing-faced saint, who has laid husband and six children, 
her all, in the old graveyard overshadowed with a grove 
of sighing pine trees. 

Christ swung the censer and the incense that stole 
across the sedge field was wafted over the brow of the 
hill, and along the diverging roads to different homes, 
so the bereaved young wife and the broken-hearted young 
mother were drawn to her, and buried their faces in 
her lap while she spoke of the Eesurrection of the dead, 
of Heaven, of the reunion of parted ones in the skies, 
and '^comforted them with the comfort wherewith she 
had been comforted of God'^ in the many hard trials and 
sorrows she had met on the way. 

Once we were in Arizona and our next appointment 
was in Boston. To make a certain fast train and reach 
our meeting in time we had to take a long drive of fifty 
miles across a desert or prairie. A gentleman who was 
well acquainted with the western wilds drove us in a 
buggy to the town where the Cannon Ball stopped. 

The memory of that long lonely trip will never be 
forgotten. Starting in the afternoon the night soon 
overtook us on the plain and then for hours there was 



QUIET POWER OF GOODNESS 303 

nothing but a silence that could be felt and a loneliness 
that was like a stifling atmosphere, it was so oppressive. 
Hours followed hours and the only sound was the dull 
beat of the horses' hoofs on the sod, the melancholy 
swish of the prairie grass in the night wind and the howl 
of a distant coyote. We finally were so affected by the 
stillness of the desert and the world of darkness all 
around us that we ceased all conversation. 

Suddenly near the hour of eleven we saw a flash and 
sparkle of light away in front of us, and as we after- 
wards discovered, fully fifteen or twenty miles away. 
We caught the first view from a swell of ground in the 
prairie and we thought we had never beheld anything 
60 beautiful, so attractive and heart-cheering. It seemed 
to inspire hope, and waved its far off white hand to 
us to come on, and spoke of shelter, rest, companionship, 
welcome and safety. If we never knew before, we un- 
derstood then why Christ said: "I am the light of 
the world," and likened His people to the same blessed 
figure of illumination, consolation and guidance. 

By and by as we descended the gentle slope we lost 
eight of our electric light shining over the plain from 
the distant town toward which we were traveling. Then 
with another swell of the prairie we saw it again, still 
shining, still gladdening us with its beautiful radiance 
as we were far away in the night, and still beckoning ua 



304 A BOX OF TREASURE 

to come on where entertainment and comfort were await- 
ing us. 

And so we traveled on, still cheered by this single 
light, when at last about two hours after midnight we 
rolled into town where a score or more of great arc 
burners were making the streets like day, swept up to a 
hotel, got a room, some rest and food and caught the 
daylight fast train going eastward. 

We said that night, and have thought the same many 
times since, that the life of a good man or woman shines 
out on this dark, sad world like the light did on the 
Arizona desert. The quiet power of godliness cannot 
be denied by the thoughtful and observant. Its striking 
influence in times of trouble upon others, its cheering 
effect in the night of sin and sorrow, its guiding, direct- 
ing force to the wanderer and those who have gone far 
away from duty and God, has been felt and admitted 
by many millions of souls. 

Like a light Madam Guyon shone in the darkness of 
France. Like a light Wesley gleamed in the profound 
gloom of what Hume calls the darkest hour of Eng- 
land's history. But some would say that these were very 
gifted and remarkable persons, and that the comparison 
fails because of the relative weakness and insignificance 
of what is called the ordinary Christian. That the first 



QUIET POWER OF GOODNESS 305 

individuals are arc burners, while the commonplace fol- 
lowers of the Lord are only candles. 

To this we reply that the Bible does not call us arc 
burners, but by the very term which some so modestly 
assume. The word says, "The spirit of man is the 
candle of the Lord.^' The main thing is ta light it, and 
then the good work at once begins. 

It is wonderful how far a candle can be seen in the 
night and over a wide intervening country. We have 
read the most affecting things about its quiet, gentle 
ray shining through a dark, stormy night, cheering and 
guiding belated travelers to the house where it shone. 
Eepeatedly ships have been saved by them. "What cares 
the lost traveler whether the beacon was in a gold, silver, 
brass or wooden candle stick, and whether it was made 
of wax, sperm, paraffine or tallow. It was the light 
itself that cheered, guided and saved. 

The thing is, will we be the Lord's candle? Will 
we let Him ignite us and place us where He will, so we 
may shine for Him, give light to those in the household, 
and help the wandering belated travelers who are out 
in the night and storm outside. 

The rest will follow in due time. Men will knock 
at the door of our lives and say we were lost and saw 
your light shining and have come to you for guidance 
and help. And thousands will arise in Heaven and call 



306 A BOX OF TKEASURE 

such people blessed, saying we would have perished in 
the desert of ein, in the awful night of iniquity, but 
we beheld your life, took heart and came to God for 
pardon and holiness, and He took us in and saved us. 
We remember a hymn we used to sing much as a 
young preacher. 

"0 the lights along the shore. 
That never grow dim ; never, never grow dim ; 
Are the souls that are aflame 
With the love of Jesus' name, 
And they guide us, yes, they guide us unto Him." 



XXXV 

THE CHAMBER OVER THE GATE 

The battle that decided Absalom's fate, and restored 
David to his throne, was fought in Gilead on the eastern 
side of Jordan. 

David who had charged his three generals, Joab, 
Abishai and Ittai, "Deal gently with the young man 
Absalom for my sake,'' sat by the gate of the city of 
Mahanaim and waited with a burdened heart for news 
from the distant field of conflict. 

At last a watchman on the walls saw a man running 
towards him, and then another coming from the same 
direction. Both brought tidings of victory to the king, 
and both knew of the death of Absalom by the hands of 
Joab and his young men. But the first would not, per- 
haps could not get his consent to tell the father of the 
slaying of his son as he was caught by the boughs of a 
tree and could not defend himself or escape. Then the 
second was enjoined to speak, by David, with the words, 
"Is the young man Absalom safe?" And Cushi an- 
swered, "The enemies of my lord the king, and all 



307 



308 A BOX OF TREASURE 

that rise against thee to do thee hurt be as that young 
man is." 

The Scripture says with its incomparable pathos, "And 
the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber 
over the gate, and wept; and as he went, thus he said, 
^0 my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would 
God I had died for thee, Absalom my eon, my son !' " 

The room over the gate in which David poured out 
his grief, detaches itself somehow from the other features 
of the Bible narrative and suggests certain facts to the 
mind. 

One is, that a truly great sorrow must have its lonely 
hiding place away from, and above the crowd. 

The sight of David turning from citizen and sol- 
dier, from street and palace, from human voices and 
presences, to be alone with his crushing sorrow, not only 
moves the spirit in deepest s3Tnpathy, but is felt to be a 
kind of picture lesson of the heart's wish and conduct 
under a grief that is truly great and overwhelming in its 
character. 

The desire of the soul is to get away to itself. It 
would hide from the gaze of the idly curious. Human 
pity and consolation are felt to be powerless at such a 
time, and the stricken life yearns for the boon of per- 
fect loneliness. In other words, it craves the solitude 
of "the room over the gate." 



CHAMBER OVER THE GATE 309 

This is so truly a principle belonging to the wounded 
heart, that when we are confronted with glib and elo- 
quent portrayers of private sorrows in mixed social circles 
and public occasions, we may know at once that a pro- 
found life-crushing woe has not visited the wordy, windy 
being before us. A truly great sorrow hides itself and 
craves privacy in the indulgence of its bitter load and 
affliction. 

We have heard women air their marital griefs and 
household troubles in a company made up of mere 
acquaintances and strangers. We were told of a female 
who took a leading part in the singing at her husband's 
funeral. We listened once with a sickened feeling to a 
woman evangelist while she told a nondescript audience 
how she preached to an assembly of people in a hall 
while her husband lay dead in his coffin up stairs. 

Every such occurrence exhibited a violation not only 
of the decencies of life, the absence of a proper respect 
and regard for the dead, but is an exposure of fhe fact 
that a real crushing sorrow had not come to any one 
of them. 

In the first instance the reader can judge for himself 
both easily and correctly. In the second case there was 
no love lost on either side as numbers knew. And in the 
third occurrence the marriage had been made for money 
and not affection, and there was no actual grief in the 



310 A BOX OF TREASURE 

voluble feminine as she was posing down stairs as a 
martyr at the stake, and getting credit for a Chris- 
tian resignation when not a particle of that beautiful 
grace was in her soul. She was glad he was gone. 

A lifetime observation convinces us that genuine grief 
draws away from publicity, from cold, observing eyes, 
from the babel of human tongues and crouches down 
alone with its misery in the stillness of the room over 
the gate. 

A second thought is that such are the calls of life 
upon us, that we cannot remain in the chamber over the 
gate, but have to come back to the duties and respon- 
sibilities awaiting us in public. 

David had not been long alone with his overwhelming 
bereavement, when the summons came that he was 
wanted, and that to stay aloof nursing his sorrow would 
mean disaster both to him and his kingdom. And so 
brushing away the tears and choking back the sobs, the 
king came and stood in the presence of the people to 
lead and rule them as of yore. 

This is certainly one of the most painful obligations of 
life, and yet one of the most pressing and essential. It 
looks to every one of us who have entered the room over 
the gate, that we can never leave it again. The very 
sunshine on the outside seems to mock us, and the mur- 



CHAMBER OVER THE GATE 311 

mur of tongues, and the sound of laughter on all sides 
is a torture. 

But there are grave faced, stem lipped Joabs that 
fiummon us back to the desk, counter, platform, pulpit, 
farm and store, and so exerting every fiber of strength 
we return to irksome duties, to weary hearted perform- 
ances, and fill our places once more in the ranks of our 
fellow men. 

And we go back not to burden others with our life 
loads and wretchedness; but as David returned with a 
saddened but resolute mind to his offices as a king and 
without a word about Absalom, so we are to sink the 
individual grief and speak not of the personal sorrow for 
the sake of the many who need help, and for the good 
of the human race as a whole. 

Self-contained and self -restrained we should be all the 
stronger and nobler for such spirit control, and go back 
into the walks of men to do all in the line of usefulness 
and blessing that is expected of us by God and man. 

Here then is another proof that the noisy proclaimer of 
his wrongs, suffering and bereavements is not doing what 
he should do, and is not the man that God desires and 
plans him to be. 

Truly this world would be sorely hurt, and robbed as 
well, of its greatest men and their achievements for 
humanity, if those who Have been fearfully smitten in life 



312 A BOX OF TREASURE 

should have remained in "the chamber over the gate." 

A mere glance at sacred and secular history will reveal 
what has been wrought in the best and highest lines for 
mankind by those who in some way have suffered most, 
and yet who still came and walked in the midst of the 
suffering children of men, and did all that could be 
done for them in body and mind and soul. 

A third truth we draw from this Scripture scene is 
that it is possible to be a blessing to men and yet bear 
about with us in the heart "The Room Over the Gate." 

We do not have to lay bare our troubles to the gaze 
of men, but there is a chamber in the soul where one can 
retire and there in the presence of God let the tears drip 
unchallenged and unrebuked over the dead Absaloms of 
our life. 

When Robert E. Lee, looking through his field glass 
saw that he had lost Gettysburg through the failure of 
one of his lieutenant generals to carry out his orders, 
it is said that he lowered the glass and rode away with- 
out a single expression of impatience, pain, regret or 
anger. And yet a crushing disappointment and sorrow 
had befallen him. 

There was no time for him to indulge his grief in 
some neighboring tent or house near the battlefield. He 
had to work now to bring his defeated army back to 
Virginia. And he did so. But no one could study his 



CHAMBER OVER THE GATE 313 

face then and thereafter when an Appomattox had been 
added to his sorrows and humiliations, but could see that 
he had "A Room Over the Gate" in his heart. Here in 
this strange apartment of the spirit we doubt not that he 
silently suffered and grieved ; but that he kept his burden 
to himself, made him all the greater as a man, and all 
the more admirable in the eyes and judgment of the 
world. 

We knew in earlier days a great church editor whose 
writings, full of strong, pure, lofty thought, and carry- 
ing with them a nameless pathetic power, moved, 
strengthened and blessed the minds and hearts of many 
thousands of readers. He had met his Absalom sorrow 
in his early manhood in the distressing death of his 
young bride. He never spoke of this past bereavement 
to the public, or even alluded to it in the social circle. 
And yet it was evident to the discerning eye that he bore 
about with him in his breast "A Room Over the Gate." 

After his death a friend, looking over his private 
papers, found this written paragraph which was evidently 
penned not for publication, not for human eyes to rest 
upon, but as a kind of wail like David's when he went up 
the steps to the chamber over the portal crying, "0 Absa- 
lom, my son, my son." 

The paragraph of a few lines read as follows : 

'Twenty miles from this room as the crow flies, is 



314 A BOX OF TREASURE 

a grave which has borrowed grace and beauty from the 
form of the lovely young woman who sleeps within. The 
shadows of the live oaks touch it kindly; the rose vine 
clambering near by drops its white and scarlet petals 
lovingly upon it. The mockingbird gives its tribute of 
song from a neighboring willow to one whose voice was 
sweeter than its own. "We visit the spot each anniversary 
of the death of the beautiful sleeper. But all the duties 
and rush of life are not suflScient to keep us from holding 
vigil every day by the side of this last resting place of 
one, who when she went away into the skies took with 
her the charm of this world and left us desolate and 
stripped of all but duty to God and man, and waiting 
till life shall end, and we shall meet again in a country 
where death is unknown and parting never comes again.'* 
All honor to the man who in sorrow can keep his grief 
to himself, and although the Eoom Over the Gate is in 
his heart and life, yet can come down like David did to 
help and bless others, and be a king among men in the 
best, truest and highest sense of the word. 



XXXVI 



THE SICK ROOM 



Very many are the thoughts that come to one in the 
loneliness of the sick room. There is ample facility for 
uninterrupted meditation in the solitariness of the apart- 
ment. Then pain provides as many wakeful hours at 
night as are generally given us by the laws of nature 
in the day. 

Very many, then, are the lessons of the sick room. 
In fact it is one of God's schools or colleges where the 
very best knowledge is imparted, where we learn and un- 
learn, and where new light falls on persons, events, con- 
ditions and one's own self, so that salvation is found by 
some, and great advancement to others in the wisdom 
and knowledge of God and in the soul life when already 
we are saved. 

Some men seem to find no place or apology for the 
presence of sickness in the Christian Dispensation. They 
appear to think that it is declarative of sin somewhere, 
and Heaven's judgment upon it ; or that it records a low 
state of faith in the child of God who is physically 



315 



316 A BOX OF TREASURE 

afflicted and cannot obtain an instantaneous, or anvhow 
a speedy cure. 

This is certainly not the teaching of Scripture, but 
the contrary. And as for the lessons and achievements 
of the sick room, we fail to see how as a race we can 
afford to do without them. 

While none of us naturally prefer to be the victim of 
a painful illness, nor would we like to see it visit another, 
and are quick to pray for deliverance from the pale faced 
visitor at once; yet it remains that to strike out what 
sickness of the body has been under grace to the soul, 
what a power it has wielded in the home, and how God 
has in innumerable times and places been glorified by it, 
would be to rob the Cause of Truth not only of the 
greatest moral victories, sublime heroisms, holy triumphs, 
and beautiful, melting scenes of grace in the sick room 
and death chamber, but would lay low one of Christian- 
ity's greatest universities where we are taught truths and 
brought into mental and spiritual conditions that over- 
top in value, and outlast in time and eternity, all the 
curriculums of earth's most famous schools and colleges. 

Men are not so fond of pain as to desire spiritual 
knowledge by that sorrowful route. But the invalid room 
comes to us all sooner or later, whether we like it or 
not, and the teaching begins while the mind silently 
takes note of the presence of the Faculty in the physi- 



SICK ROOM 317 

cian, with his knife, the nurse, with glass and spoon, and 
then the long procession of the hours, the longer array 
of physical pangs, and the eloquence of silence itself is 
poured forth, while the weary days and nights go by. 
They all seem qualified to teach, and certainly we learn, 
under their varied ministry. 

The desk in this strange, sad institute is a bed, while 
the correct, approved and insisted-upon attitude of the 
students is a horizontal one. Here the back is turned 
towards the earth, and the face lifted upwards to the 
sky, and all it contains in its marvellous depths. 

The school house is very quiet. No noise allowed in 
the room. The student with his desk which is placed 
in the corner or pulled out into the middle of the 
apartment, must have perfect stillness around him. 

Who can tell what is taught, what is received or given 
up, what is conquered or yielded in these lessons of a 
week, month or several months. 

We have all been to this school. Many are still at the 
desk. It has been hard study for months and months. 
It would certainly be surprising if we did not learn 
some few things in that time. 

One thing we got to feel most deeply was the sense 
of our own insignificance. 

What did it matter to the world ; what does it amount 



318 A BOX OF TREASURE 

to the whole earth if any man is moved from its walka 
and men are told that he is sick. 

The globe rolls on just the same carrying the nations 
with it; the nations rush on their way regardlesa if 
thousands disappear from their midst. The absence of a 
man from the ranks of men is as much missed and aa 
quickly replaced by the form of another, as the water 
rushes in to fill up the space when the finger is with- 
drawn from the bowl. The water pours in, and the hole 
that the child thought would be left after the pulling 
away of the finger is as instantly gone. 

So when the invalid with pale face and feeble step 
comes to the open window and looks out; the rattle of 
cabs, the tread of heels on the pavement, the roar of 
the train and whistle of distant steamboats tells him 
in unmistakable language that the world has rolled on 
just the same in its labor, thought, speech, action and 
achievements, and that this faded piece of humanity 
leaning against the window has not been missed among 
the busy millions a single moment. 

Moreover, the world hardly knew when he disap- 
peared, and when he returned to the scene of action. 
Only recently one man said to another in a crowd, 
grasping his hand with surprise : "Why, Joe, I thought 
you were dead." And yet this same Joe doubtless won- 
dered who could take his place when he was gone. 



SICK ROOM 319 

In the city of New Orleans there is a building wliich 
apparently rests upon a row of Satyr-like figures. They 
appear to be holding up the main structure and the bent 
position of the forms, the deep lines on the stony faces 
would indicate that the load and pressure were tre- 
mendous, and but for them, all would topple in the 
dust, walls, pillars, dome and all. 

But the architect and builder will tell you that not 
a pound of weight rests upon the shoulders of these 
stone images. That niches were provided for them, and 
they — these same burdened looking Satyrs — were slipped 
into the places prepared for them after the building was 
completed. In a word, they were ^'put in" and the 
anxious, wearied, oppressed look was "put on!" 

And so it is that the little human figure of today can 
be taken from the niche of time, place, and position, 
and the great edifice that God has built for the present 
and everlasting good of man will continue to stand and 
abide forever. Eedemption does not rest upon us, but 
upon Christ as its true, immovable and eternal foun- 
dation. 

A second lesson was the helplessness, and if we might 
be allowed to say it, the secondariness of the body. 

Its boasted spring and strength is gone in a few hours. 
Its appetites are disregarded. It is evidently a vessel 
or casket containing something greater. And this 



320 A BOX OP TREASURE 

greater thing comes to the front now. The soul flits 
like an angel over the prostrate body and marvels at its 
Weakness and heaviness. 

The strength of the soul rises over its fallen physical 
comrade. It exults when the body complains. Its 
hunger and thirst remains and is gratified, while the 
material form before it can neither eat nor drink, nor 
does it care to do so. The poor body is reduced to 
whispers, and finally to inability to communicate its 
wants to friends and attendants; while the soul at this 
very time of physical prostration seems often to be at its 
best, and communes face to face unbrokenly with the 
God of the Universe. 

We can but say in view of this fact alone, there is 
another nature distinct from the physical, and a higher, 
nobler nature, and that whatever is done for the spirit 
is necessarily compelled to take rank far above anything 
that is or could ever be done for the body on the part 
of Heaven. 

Still another out of the numerous lessons obtained at 
the sick school, we receive a deeper realization than ever 
of the faithfulness of Christ. 

Numbers see the person smitten with disease rise up, 
leave the ranks of the well in body, and disappear in the 
sick room, but do not follow him. They sometimes 
give a passing thought or recollection, but they stop 



SICK ROOM 321 

Bhort of the door, and by and by forget the one who 
went in and lay down in a suffering that was to continue 
for long weeks and months. 

But Christ came into the room, and closing the portal 
remained with the afflicted one. How sweet it was to 
find Him by you and in you, when the hot head struck 
the pillow, and pain in spite of all you could do, wrung 
scalding tear drops from the eyes. The divine whisper 
was, "I will not leave you comfortless. I will never 
leave thee nor forsake thee.^' 

Then some more tears came of another order, and 
they were very sweet and heart relieving. 

It matters not with the Saviour that the sick one is 
gifted or not, well-to-do or not, attractive or not, popular 
or unpopular, a success or a failure, as men count these 
things. Jesus comes into the sick room all the same 
and there He abides. 

The physician steps in for a minute twice a day; the 
visiting friend manages to give five minutes; the nurse 
on being paid, stays from six to eight hours, but the 
Saviour never leaves the room. He stays all the hours. 

The Life Angel may be sent at last, and the invalid 
goes back to the labors and conflicts of earth, fairly 
weighted down with holy, gracious, gi'ateful memories 
of Christ in the sick room. 

Or the Death Angel may come; the weary wheels of 



322 A BOX OF TREASURE 

life cease to turn; and one of God's chariots sweep the 
sufferer from the reahns of pain to the glory world, and 
rest life above in the skies. 

Now then for the undertaker and plumed hearse, for 
anchors and crowns of roses on the coffin lid, for silver 
plates and inscriptions of broken hearted love and grief 
that were unuttered on earth. Now, then, for a great 
attendance and procession of suddenly materialized 
friends, for sighs that cannot be heard in the casket, 
for tears that cannot be seen through the shroud, for 
words of kindness and commendation and praise that 
came too late for the silent sleeper on the bier. Now 
then, we repeat, is the time for the works of men, music, 
addresses, brotherhoods, regalias, flowers, funeral train 
and all. And all done for one who sees not, hears not, 
and is a billion leagues away in another world. 

But Christ's work was done before hand. He came 
to us while we were living and suffering. He handed 
us over, so to speak, to men when we were dead, and 
when only the poor shell that contained the gem was left. 

Truly, many of us will say with overflowing hearts, 
and eyes, and lips, when we see the Saviour in Heaven: 

"I was sick and 3^e came unto me." 



XXXVII 

SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT DEATH 

That is a strange conjunction which exists between 
a visible body and an invisible spirit. The result of 
this mysterious alliance is a living being, a personality 
affecting and influencing us in many ways, so that we 
are different, and life itself is not the same because of 
this living, thinking, loving creation of God. 

When the spirit leaves the body we see that the in- 
habitant of the tenement of clay is gone. The some 
one who not only gave physical force to the body, but 
invested it with a mental, moral and social charm, is 
departed. 

Even while we hang broken-hearted over the form 
that is left, yet the one who loved us and whom we 
loved has vanished. What lies on the bier and in the 
coffin is but the casket from which the jewel has been 
taken, the mere semblance of a person who himself is in 
distant worlds, even while our tears drip on th^ cold, 
unconscious face. 

Several facts impress us about this strange, sad thing 
called death. 

One is its unspeakable pathos. 
323 



324 A BOX OP TREASURE 

Perhaps the helplessness of the dead may be the great 
reason for the tender, pitiful feeling which it invariably 
inspires. Anyhow, the hardest of men are touched at the 
sight and even enemies are disarmed in its presence. 

What was once a strong, resolute man is now seen 
unable to lift a hand or speak a single word in self- 
defense, no matter what the attack may be. 

People were busy enough to criticise and condemn 
only a few days before. What has happened to so silence 
them? What strange force has the pale-faced, silent 
sleeper exercised that not only the bitterest adversaries 
cease their accusations, but even speak that which is 
kindly concerning the pathetically helpless form before 
them ? 

A second fact is the eloquence of death. 

Surely a man never pleads his sorrows, wrongs and 
unfortunate life so well as when he is silent in the 
coffin. 

The lips do not move, but they persuade and win 
the people all the same. 

Something in us also begins to entreat for the one 
who cannot speak for himself. We recall the difficulties 
of his life, we remember his disadvantages, the injus- 
tices done him, the hard lot he had, and so the speech- 
less, voiceless one in the casket is not only vindicated, 
but acquitted and honored. 



SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT DEATH 325 

A third feature is the isolating power of death on 
those who are bereaved. 

A man who has lost a loved one is at once exiled into 
a world to himself. Friends grasp his hand and speak 
kindly words, but none seem able to come where he is 
now living. It would take not only a similar grief, but 
the identical sorrow to do that. So he has a language 
of his own, a suffering peculiarly his, and a world all 
to himself. He is removed in a sense from those who 
observe him, and just as sadly true, they, the observers, 
are far from him. 

No sailor shipwrecked on a rock, with waves breaking 
all around him and no sail or land in sight, is more 
truly insulated than the man upon whose heart has 
fallen the crushing affliction of the death of one near 
and dear to him. How far away seem all signals of 
sympathy and help; how remote all human vessels in 
the oflBng; how unable all seem to come near and land; 
and what a ceaseless stretch of billows of grief and pain 
keep rolling in on the mind and heart. Exiled and ex- 
patriated indeed. 

A fourth influence of death is realized in the heart 
shrinking from and suffering under sounds and scenes 
of merriment and joy. 

Once in a great bereavement, a sudden laugh on the 
street would nearly break my heart. We would find 



326 A BOX OF TREASURE 

ourselves wondering how any one could be glad in such a 
grief-stricken grave-riven world like this. The only 
sound we recall which we could endure in that sorrow- 
ful period was the ringing of distant church bells dur- 
ing the month of Lent. Somehow they spoke of heaven 
and had a soothing power. 

In a late sorrow, as we walked alone one night 
on the street we passed a dwelling ablaze with light 
where a wedding was taking place. At another Just be- 
yond a party was going on, the street was crowded with 
carriages, while voices, music and laughter from the 
house filled the night air. 

We were not selfish enough to wish the pleasure of 
others marred because we walked a stricken man on their 
pavements, but we only mention the fact how a great 
trouble made the sounds of merriment and revelry 
pierce the grieving heart like daggers. 

A greater suffering came as we turned a corner, on 
which the Methodist church stands. It has been made 
an Institutional church, and just as we passed it the 
sounds of a bowling alley, the stroke of the ball and 
rattling fall of the ten pins came through the windows 
of the annex and broke upon our ears. God only knows 
the suffering we endured to hear such sounds from His 
House, and at such a time of personal bereavement and 



SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT DEATH 327 

Borrow. How can they do it! we said, as we walked 
with dripping tears alone in the night. 

A fifth fact about death is seen in its strange power 
to give an appearance as well as experience of emptiness 
to everything in the world. 

It is marvellous how the death of one person will make 
the earth look lonesome and desert-like, while life seems 
hardly worth the living. No matter how great the 
crowd, how busy the throng, the aching consciousness 
that one is gone from the v/alks of life, never to return, 
causes us to feel the solitariness and forsakenness we 
have mentioned, while Ichabod is written on every street 
and house, and on every employment and enjoyment 
of time. 

We have never read a paragraph or poem that so per- 
fectly describes this state of mind as is done in a few 
simple, natural, but powerful, lines written by George 

Eliot: "and I AM LONELY.'' 

"The world is great ! the birds all fly from me ; 
The stars are golden fruit upon a tree, 
All out of reach ! My little sister went. 
And I am lonely. 

"The world is great ! I tried to mount the hill 
Above the pines, where the light lies so still. 
But it rose higher ! Little Lisa went, 
And I am lonely. 



328 A BOX OF TEEASUKE 

"The world is great ! the wind goes rushing by. 
I wonder where it comes from ? Sea birds cry 
And hurt my heart ! My little sister went. 
And I am lonely. 

"The world is great ! the people laugh and talk 
And make loud holiday ; how fast they walk ! 
I'm lame, they push me ; little Lisa went, 
And I am lonely." 

A final thought is that such is the crushing power of 
the sorrow coming from bereavement that we do not see 
how any one can endure it without Christ. 

In fact we do not believe that the human heart can 
bear such grief apart from divine support and con- 
solation. 

Stoicism is not proper triumph over trouble, and is 
not victory at all. Hardness and bitterness is not 
conquest, but defeat. "While resort to opiates, alcohol 
and rushing into worldliness is a confession that the 
bereaved person did not carry their load to Christ the 
Burden-Bearer, that they have themselves sunk under 
the unbearable weight of grief, and have ended in 
failure where others obtain victory. 

The soul was made for God, is dependent upon Him 
and can only be happy in Him. So if we need Him in 



SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT DEATH 829 

the days of youth, health, strength and happiness, what 
can we do without Him in the period of profound sor- 
row, in the time when the room has been emptied, the 
chair made vacant and a new grave is seen in the 
cemetery ? 

We pity from the depths of our soul the man or 
woman who has not God with them in such dark, sad, 
trying hours. 

We were once summoned in haste when a pastor, to 
a home where an only child, a beautiful girl of three 
years of age, had suddenly died. As we entered the 
room and glanced at the bed on which the little form 
was resting, it seemed as if she had fallen asleep. The 
long lashes lay on her cheek, the ringlets were gently 
stirred on her forehead, by a soft breeze blowing 
through the open window. There was no wasting ap- 
pearance of sickness, nor even death, and yet the soul 
was gone. 

We next looked for the mother, and found her on 
the floor on the other side of the bed, writhing in speech- 
less agony, with both hands, clutching her breast as if 
her heart was breaking. 

We knelt down and tried to talk with and pray for 
her; but she seemed to hear nothing, and would not be 
comforted. She was without Christ and went down 
with her sorrow then and thereafter. 



330 A BOX OF TREASUKE 

We saw a man who had buried his wife, and had re- 
turned to his home after the funeral, sit down on the 
front door step and refuse to go in. He said with a 
voice and look of utter despair: "I have no home now. 
I do not care to live." 

Instead of coming to Christ, he took to drink, and 
added to his unconsoled sorrow a ruined character and 
life. 

How thankful we are to see others even in the first 
anguish of their grief, and all the pain of the after 
loneliness ; go at once to the Son of God ; cling to Him ; 
leave all with Him; and by His power and love and 
grace get comforted while the tears are dripping. They 
kiss the hand that seems to smite them ; and looking up to 
Him from the most crushing of bereavements say like 
one of yore, Though you slay me, yet will I trust you. 



XXXVIII 



DYING FLASHES 



When a candle is about to expire, it has been often 
observed to send up one or more gleams of light, that 
were brighter and stronger than the preceding flame, 
but only to be followed immediately by extinction and 
darkness. When a building is being consumed, we have 
all noticed the same phenomenon. Just as we thought 
all was over, a sheet of fire burst forth and towered 
up that reminded one in its energy, brightness and height 
of a far earlier period of the conflagration. It looked 
like the spectators were to be treated to a greater dis- 
play than ever, when suddenly the flame went down, the 
glow ended and blackness came upon the smoldering 
heap. 

The explanation in the candle's action was some little 
source of strength that had not been touched until that 
moment; and the transitory outburst of fire, heat and 
light from the doomed dwelling was the falling in of 
some wall or roof hidden by the smokd, giving for a few 
moments only, the fuel for one more burst of dying 



331 



332 A BOX OF TREASURE 

power, a farewell flash of antecedent force and great- 
ness that was now being ended forever. 

The same thing is noticeable in the intellectual life, 
where gifted authors, after having delighted the world, 
will pass into third class work, become prolix, common- 
place and tedious, and then just before the light goes out 
in the grave, will write some of their best paragraphs, 
pages and chapters. Generals who are acknowledged 
military geniuses show the same temporary brilliancy 
just before defeat, exile, or death, puts out the candle 
entirely. Something grotesquely analagous can even be 
seen in lunacy, that has its flashes of mental brightness 
from the disorder and shadows of a long mental gloom 
and coming night of death. 

A similar manifestation is beheld in the action of 
the sun at the close of day. Its race through the skies 
is ended, and the great monarch is sinking out of sight 
behind a bank of leaden colored ordinary looking clouds. 
It 13 anything but a remarkable or beautiful close of 
diurnal life, when suddenly, on glancing again toward 
the west, the horizon seems to be on fire, and the sun, 
with a closing stroke of power, has dyed the heavens 
with his blood, and gone down on a funeral pyre of 
crimson and gold. This is the sun's dying flash. _ It is 
as wonderful as anything he has done in all the pre- 
ceding hours of the day, but it is his last for that day. 



DYING FLASHES 333 

A startling likeness to these happenings in the natural 
world and intellectual realm is frequently to be beheld 
in the spiritual life. There can be a gloroius sunrise, 
a useful day to follow, then a declination of experience, 
a cooling off of heat, a lessening of light, a steady sink- 
ing earthward, and then just before the backslidden life 
sinks out of sight, a few dying flashes of power may pre- 
cede the disappearance of the man from the ways of 
righteousness or from the world itself forever. 

All this is strikingly seen in the lapse and ruin of 
Balaam. For after repeated disobediences to God in 
his treatment of the angel, we hear him uttering some 
of the sublimest prophecies in the Bible. It is im- 
possible to recall without emotion his words, "I shall 
see him but not now ; I shall behold him, but not nigh," 
and remember that they were uttered after he had 
sinned, and just before his final, moral ruin and death 
on the plain. 

Eepeatedly we have beheld the same strange happen- 
ings in the lives of Christians who have gone or are 
going astray. A most remarkable prayer, or a most 
wonderful sermon has been known again and again to 
fall from lips that had already been untrue to Christ, 
and false and sinful in the gravest way. The candle was 
down in the socket and was giving one final upward 
leap. Some piece of untouched good, like the hidden 



334 A BOX OF TEEASUBE 

wall, suddenly .surged and fell forward, giving a mo- 
mentary glare. The sun was sinking, and just before 
he disappeared sent a dying flash that streamed up 
to the very zenith and looked for a while as if the 
day was coming back. But it was the last glance as 
well as gasp of an ended day; and night with a sable 
mantle of grief came softly forward, and with glistening 
star-like tears on its robe, bent over the casket in the 
west, and gazed silently and mournfully upon the de- 
parted form. 

It is possible, however, to invest the last gleaming 
of the day with another and happier meaning. The 
sunset of the Occident we know is the sunrise of the 
Orient. The dying flash in the west of one land is a 
morning flash of glory on another shore. 

This is not always the case in the spiritual life, but 
it may be so. The tearful, melting, kindling hope, 
new resolution, a strange, unexpected energy, and sudden 
burst of power, shortlived and evanescent as all may 
be, can only come from the presence and work of the 
Holy Spirit. Left to itself the backslidden and sinful 
soul would never feel a pang of contrition nor realize 
a single pulsation of goodness. The wandering sheep 
would die on the dark mountains of iniquity but for 
the seeking divine shepherd. The slumbering soul 



DYING FLASHES 335 

would sleep on in its unconscious apathetic state, but for 
the voice that wakes the dead. 

It is well for the drifting, staggering, falling, dying 
Christian to study properly these last flickerings of god- 
liness in his heart and life. If he insists on regarding 
them as the final flare of the exhausted candle, then 
his own despair will hasten the coming utter darkness 
and ruin. But if he will realize that the sudden blaze 
and upward movement in his soul, was not so much 
the consuming of a wall of some remaining excellence 
and virtue in his character, as the warm breathing and 
quickening power of the Holy Ghost upon his fainting, 
sinking spirit, then has he ground indeed for fresh 
hope, good determinations, new efforts and the begin- 
ning of a better life with higher aims, deeper love, pro- 
founder humility, mightier faith and grander results 
than ever known before. That which he and others 
considered a sunset, can be a glorious Sunrise on the re~ 
maining years of the life, and making a more beautiful 
day in the spiritual sense than was beheld in the other 
that may have ended in evening shadows and gloom. 

The Spirit of God does not work with the soul to tease 
and disappoint, but to fulfill and bring to pass. If he 
shows the pattern of a life sanctuary to the mind in 
some exalted moment, it is that a temple of glory should 
go up and not a den or a hovel. 

The Bible says God works in us to will and to do of 



336 A BOX OF TREASUBE 

his good pleasure. First, he stimulates the man to will, 
and then he energizes him to perform that which is 
right. 

God cannot compel a man in moral conduct, ©r decide 
for him in the choice between good and evil. The utmost 
that the Spirit can do is to woo and urge, and this 
he will and does do. 

Now as God has made us for his glory as well aa 
our happiness; as he certainly must value property 
created in his own image, and does not want a single 
soul to perish and so declares in his "Word — it is evident 
and conclusive that when he works upon an individual 
to forsake sin, and make a new start for duty, righteous- 
ness and heaven — such a divine movement is made with 
the design and desire that the man be recovered and set 
on his heavenward way. 

In other words, what is supposed to be the twilight 
of a closed day, is intended to be the dawn of a new 
epoch, the beginning of a fresh and glorious religious 
history. The scarlet of evening is to become the crimson 
of morning. The Past may be looked back upon as an 
Occident with melancholy surf breaking upon rocky 
shores; while the Future stretches out before the eyes 
like a golden Orient with dimpled seas, sunny harbors, 
groves of palm and strands of coral. The dying flash 
of the evening, turns out to be the flood of light and 
dash of glory of the morning. 



AUG' 15 1918 



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